


Stream of Past

by Crazycousins202



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Hatake Kakashi, BAMF Uchiha Sasuke, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Fix-It, Haruno Sakura Needs a Hug, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi Needs a Hug, Medical Inaccuracies, SasuSaku - Freeform, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Uchiha Sasuke Needs a Hug, Uchiha Sasuke is Bad at Feelings, Uzumaki Naruto Needs a Hug, heck team 7 as a whole need a hug, no beta - we die like mulan soldiers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 26,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23321038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazycousins202/pseuds/Crazycousins202
Summary: When the village gets destroyed by Pain, Sakura must travel to the past in order to fix everything/ Time Travel Au.(also found on wattpad and fanfiction.net)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 41
Kudos: 332





	1. Chapter 1

Smoke, debris and corpses, that's all you can see in Konohagakure now. Sakura felt sick. Everywhere she looked there was only sadness. Pain had attacked the village and laid waste wherever his Rinnegan looked. Sure they defeated him but at what cost? Naruto was dead, and so was Kakashi and Ino and just about everyone else she cared about. 

Sakura looked at her precious village when someone approached her. It was Tsunade.

"Sakura! How much chakra do you have left?" asked Tsunade.

She blinked at her in confusion. "I still have some left...Why? Is someone wounded?" asked Sakura.

"No. But I'll need you to come with me."said Tsunade as she turned around."Hurry!" Sakura got up and started following her mentor, they entered the hokage tower and then her office. Tsunade pulled out a scroll from her desk and handed it to Sakura.

"This scroll has the power to transport a person back in time, it is a forbidden jutsu, but considering our circumstances, I believe it's for the best to use it now." said Tsunade. "Sakura, you are the perfect person for this job, I trust you to change the future for the better. Do you accept this mission?"

Sakura looked at the scroll in her hands in thought. She can go back in time? And prevent the death of her friends and family? She can save everyone?

"Yes!" said Sakura firmly.

"Good, let me explain how it works. I'll send you back with your memory intact, about 5 years ago, once I do this you can never come back. You should still have some of your current abilities so don't worry about not being strong enough. The scroll will come with you and you need to keep it safe got it?" explaind Tsunade.

"But master, what if I run into the past you, won't it be suspicious to have the same power?" asked Tsunade.

The hokage stood a bit in thought before answering. "Just show me the scroll and I'll understand. Now, lets get you back in time." 

Sakura opened the scroll and made the hand seals. Then the world turned white.

...

Sakura woke up to the white ceiling of her bedroom. She got up from her bed and felt hair along her back. _Wait...Long hair?_ Sakura ran to her desk to look in the mirror and realized she was twelve. It worked! She was back in time, she- she really did it. She turned her head and saw the scroll on the bed, she quickly cast a substitution on it, turning it into a pen and left it on her desk, hidden in plain sight.

"Sakura, wAKE UP YOU'RE GONNA BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!" yelled her mother. School? Right, she was back at the academy. She took her weapon pouch and realized that she only had 3 kunai and 20 shuriken. _Oh, how stupid I was back then...I guess I'll train with those for now and buy some more later._ She looked in her closet and scowled, she couldn't train in her old outfit, it was so impractical. She decided to wear her old one for now and buy a new one with Ino. 

She went to the kitchen to greet her mom and then pulled the scissors and cut her hair. Her mother looked at her surprised. 

"Sakura! Your hair! Why?" asked Mebuki.

"I just thought it was time for a change, y'know?" said Sakura

"I see, well then dear, you should hurry, you don't wanna be late now do you?" said her mother. Sakura nodded then left.

She kept walking towards the academy until she recognized a flash of blonde hair and purple. _Ino..._ She started running towards her until she stopped in front of her.

"Good morning forehead! What happened to your hair?" said Ino.

"Morning pig, I decided for a change, and besides long hair is a liability." said Sakura.

"Are you sure you aren't trying to get Sasuke attention?" asked Ino slyly.

"No, I'm over him." said Sakura.

Ino widened her eyes in shock. "Whaa? For real? What changed?" asked Ino.

 _Well for starters he's a betraying backstabbing 2 faced snake._ Now don't get her wrong, she didn't hate Sasuke and she will do everything in her power to stop him from leaving, but right now she didn't feel any love for him, she resigned herself."I realized that I missed you and no boy should get in the way of our friendship, sorry for what I said back then." said Sakura while smiling.

Ino looked at her shocked then started thinking. "You know what forehead? You're right! Screw boys, girl power for life!"

Now it was Sakura's turn to be shocked. "R-really?"

"Well, what you are saying does make sense and beside.... I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you as well." Ino's voice was sincere and that made Sakura happy.

"Now come on forehead, I'll race you to the academy."

Sakura smirked "You're on pig!"

When they arrived at the academy they were both panting. They looked at each other then smiled and walked inside the classroom. They both took a seat next to each other and waited for Iruka-sensei. When he finally arrived he announced that in a month they will all take the graduation test. _Perfect, that means I have a month to train..._

When she got home she prepared herself a schedule, she would run 1 lap around the village, then she would build her strength, after all of this she would come home change and go to school. Come back and work on her chakra reserve. _  
_

...

She was quite surprised and happy when Ino invited her for a shopping spree 2 days later. They started building their friendship back up, it was still awkward sometimes, but at least it was something. After she bought herself a new outfit and a few weapons she went and picked up a few medical books.

"Medical stuff? What do you need that for?" asked Ino

"I started practicing medical ninjutsu, here watch this." Sakura scratched herself with a kunai enough to draw blood then quickly healed herself like nothing happened.

"Cool! When did you learn that?" asked Ino

She couldn't just tell Ino she was taught by a legendary sannin, that doesn't even remember her and is probably drunk off her ass in some bar. Sakura shrugged "I've been going to the library for the past weeks and read a lot of medical books, but-"

"You need your own medical stuff, I got ya. Well if you ever need herbs, i'll be more than happy to help you, forehead." said Ino.

"Thanks pig."


	2. Team 7

The month flew by and Sakura found herself at graduation day. She was wearing the outfit she bought with Ino( a red sleeveless shirt with the Haruno crest on the back, a white constructor like belt full of medicine stuff and weapons, white spandex, a black skirt that was cut so it won't restrict mobility, pink gloves and black sandals with a bit of heel). She waited in class for Iruka to announce the teams. Soon he reached team 7:

"Naruto Uzumaki. Sakura Haruno-"

"YES!" cheered Naruto.

" and Sasuke Uchiha."

"NO!" cried Naruto. For the 2nd time team 7 was formed.

After that each team meet their sensei, leaving team 7 alone in the classroom. Naruto, getting bored , decided to play a prank on Kakashi-sensei. He set up the eraser and waited.

"Our sensei is a Jōnin, what makes you think he would fall for something like that?" said Sasuke.

"Who knows, maybe he is really dumb." said Sakura while leaning back and smirking. Sasuke shot her a glare while Naruto cheered that she was on his side. Eventually Kakashi showed up and fell for the prank. 

"My first impression of you....I don't like you guys." said Kakashi. 

"The feeling's mutual" said Sakura. Sasuke smirked while Naruto laughed.

They all made their way to the rooftop where Kakashi told them to introduce themselves. 

"Oh, yeah? Why don't you introduce yourself first, as an example." said Naruto.

"Me?...My name is Kakashi Hatake... things like and things I hate...I don't feel like telling you that....my dreams for the future...never really thought about it....as for my hobbies...I have lots of them." _Hah! Classic Kakashi-sensei._ "Allright, your turn."

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, I like instant ramen, especially the one Iruka-sensei got me, I hate the 3 minutes you have to wait for the ramen cup, my hobby is eating different kinds of ramen and my dream is to become Hokage."

"I see...Next" said Kakashi

" My name is Sakura Haruno, I like medical ninjutsu and helping people, I dislike traitors and war, my hobby is...learning to brew different types of ointments and potions and such...My dream is to become Konoha's head medic and to protect the people I care about." 

"Medical Ninjutsu?" asked Kakashi.

"Yes, I learned it in my spare time." answered Sakura proudly.

"I see...Next."

"My name...is Sasuke Uchiha...I hate a lot of things...and I don't particularly like anything...what I have is not a dream because I will make it a reality...I'm going to restore my clan and destroy...a certain someone..." said Sasuke. They all stared at him for a few seconds. _Edgelord..._

Kakashi started talking about how 66% of graduates were dropped out of the program, he explained what they'll be doing tomorrow and warned them not to eat.

"What? Why not?" cried Naruto.

"Because you'll puke" was Kakashi short answer before he left. 

"Medical Ninjutsu? That's really cool Sakura."said Naruto. She smirked and thanked Naruto.

They all got up and walked towards the stairs 

...

Next day, Sakura woke up for her morning routine. She quickly changed in gear and jumped out the window of her house. Halfway in her route she senses passed by Kakashi sensei. They greeted each other as she continued her stroll. When she got home she started doing push ups and squats, after she was done she quickly gathered her things and went to meet Naruto and Sasuke. After a few hours, Kakashi finally showed up and Naruto yelled at him for being late.

"Well a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way." said Kakashi. After that, he explained the bell test. " When I say start, you can begin." Just as he said start they all ran in different locations. After a while she decided that the best thing would be to find her boys and try to convince them to team up. She ventured through the trees, trying to find them until she sensed Kakashi's chakra. She kept going, like she hasn't sensed anything. Waiting for him to get close so she can punch him. Kakashi dodged and she punched the ground blasting it to pieces. It wasn't that impressive, but enough to confuse him a bit. She took the opportunity to kick him, but again, he dodged. 

"Very impressive Sakura. This technique requires advanced chakra control." said Kakashi.

"Thanks sensei." said Sakura. She prepared for a counter attack, but Kakashi just left, his chakra signal disappearing along with him. _Where did he go? Was he planning something?_ That's when 'Sasuke' entered the clearing, beaten and bruised like he just came from war. And for a second there, she believed that to be Sasuke. But then she remembered that it was a genjutsu and quickly did the hand seals and yelled: "Kai." Fake Sasuke dispelled and she kept on walking through the forest. 

Eventually she came across a rare sight to see. Sasuke buried in the ground, with only his head sticking out. She resisted the urge to laugh . After all, not anyone can say they came across the almighty Sasuke Uchiha stuck in the ground.

"Sasuke? What happened to you?" asked Sakura.

"Kakashi used an Earth Style attack, Head Hunter jutsu. He attacked me from underground." explained Sasuke. _Heh, good job Kakashi-sensei._

"Want me to get you out?" she asked.

"How?" asked the Uchiha skeptically.

"Well, I can move the earth around you, here watch." She placed her palm on the ground and watched the ground crumble around him. He pulled himself out and looks at Sakura.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

She shrugged " I only gathered chakra in my hand." After that she started walking towards the clearing.

"Wait!" said Sasuke.

"What is it?" asked Sakura.

"Train with me." he said. Her mouth hanged right open. Uchiha Sasuke, _the Uchiha Sasuke_ , wanted to train with her? The hell? Since when?

"I'm sorry what?" she said dumbfounded.

Sasuke looked at her with a thoughtful expression. "I'm sure you heard yesterday, I'm going to restore my clan. And to do that, I need to get stronger. So I want you to help me with my chakra control."

Sakura looked at him, thinking about what he just said. "Ok and if I agree, what do I get?"

"I'll help you with strength and stamina." he said.

"Hm, alright, when?" she asked.

"Today, after this mission." he said. Sakura nodded. They heard the alarm and started to walk in the direction of the ringing. From there everything went on like she remembered. Naruto tied to a stump, Kakashi lecturing them about teamwork, them feeding Naruto and finally their sensei announcing that they passed. Naruto cheered. They were all about to head their separate way when Kakashi called out to her.

"Ah...Sakura! I wanted to talk to you about something." said Kakashi.

"What is it sensei?" she asked.

"That technique you used, where did you learn it?" he asked.Aah, she was wondering when he would ask. But Sakura already prepared her answer.

"I've read a few books about a medic with perfect chakra control named Tsunade. It said she had inhuman strength.It didn't take long for me to piece the 2 together and realize she used her chakra to build strength. So i started training myself in order to do the same. I'd like to say I'm decent at it." she said while scratching the back of her head to look shy.

"Hmm, I see. Well that's pretty impressive Sakura." said Kakashi

"Thanks Kakashi-sensei" she said. After that she went home to take a shower.


	3. Mission Time

After talking with Kakashi, Sakura went home, took a shower and went out to meet Sasuke. On her way she kept thinking about her mission. Ok, so first there was Orochimaru. He was her number one priority, if he manages to put his curse on Sasuke, it's game over. She knew she was going to meet him in the chunin exams, he would be lurking in the shadows. She knows she can't just straight out run at him and kill him, so that was out of the question. Maybe she can trap him in a genjutsu? No, that wouldn't work, he was a sanin after all...Poison him? Maybe... _Damn it, if only Tsunade was here..._

Her train of thoughts stopped when she reached the training grounds. Sasuke was leaning back against a tree trunk.

"Hi." she said. He merely gave her a "Hn" as an acknowledgment. After that Sasuke stood up and they started training. They worked on her strength by carrying heavy things around such as boulders and logs. Then on her stamina, for that she had to run 90 laps around the training grounds. They took a break for 15 minutes then started working on her strength again, then run the laps again and repeat. They continued like that for a few hours. Eventually they had to stop so Sakura can have enough energy left to teach him. He was actually pretty surprised to see she lasted that long. She didn't look that tough and he expected her to run out of breath after the second break. But then again, appearances can be deceiving.

After Sakura managed to catch her breath she motioned Sasuke to follow her. She sat down and motioned for him to stay next to her. After he did, she took a piece of cloth out of her pouch. Sasuke raised a brow.

"Ok, let's get started. Here's what beginners usually do." she started. Sakura took the piece of cloth and put it in her palm. Then she sent a pulse of chakra to her hand and once she was convinced it was the certain pressure she flipped her hand. Sasuke watched as the piece of cloth stuck.

"You need to exert just the right amount of chakra, if it's to strong you can hurt yourself when using a weapon, if it's too weak it will fall. Now you try it." she said while handing over the cloth.

Sasuke took the cloth and started pulsing the chakra in his hand. At first it fell, then it was stuck, but Sakura pointed out that it was too strong. He kept training like that for a while until sunset.

"Don't worry Sasuke, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually." said Sakura."I'm gonna go home now, when you master this well move on with a shuriken."

"Hn." he said.

The following weeks went on with team 7 going on all sorts of D-rank missions. With Sakura going with Naruto out for lunch every day, volunteering at the hospital( because 1. she missed it and 2. it would help with her story) and training with Sasuke after. Needless to say, she was quite busy. As time went on, her team work with the boys improved. Having different strategies to work with the boys. And while her relations with Sasuke and Naruto were great, she couldn't say the same about them. They constantly bickered and fought forcing her to be the mature one and try to stop them. Today was no exception.

They were called at the hokage for their first C-rank mission. And of course they had to yell at each other in front of the hokage. She really didn't have the patience right now to deal with this, so she did the first thing that passed her mind. She punched the both of them.

"Aah, Sakura-chan, why did you punch me?" cried Naruto while Sasuke glared at her.

"Don't you idiots know when tO STOP? You're disrespecting the Hokage." yelled Sakura."Say you're sorry, NOW!" They both apologized and let the Hokage continue.

"...As I was saying, this mission will take part in the land of waves, you are to act as bodyguards for a certain individual. You may come in." said the Hokage. And in that moment, Tazuna stumbled inside the office with a bottle of alcohol.

"What's this?" said Tazuna."They're a bunch of runts! Especially the short, blonde one with the stupid face." Yeah...Naruto didn't like him that much. Sakura quickly got home, took a few poisoned kunais (that she made last night), medical supplies and made her way to the gate.

Of course Sakura already knew how this mission was going to play out. They were going to find Zabuza, fight him and hopefully get back alive, _andmaybekillGatōtoo._

They kept on walking until Sakura saw puddles on the ground, seemed normal, right? Wrong! It hasn't rained in days. She knew exactly what was going to happen, so she threw a kunai at the puddle and yelled for the others to get ready.

And just like that, the Demon Brothers sprang out of the water. "Damn you!" yelled one of them. Kakashi stepped in front of them and the Demon Brothers sliced him apart. Sakura averted her gaze, she knew it wasn't the real Kakashi, but it reminded her of her old life.

"Sensei!" cried Naruto, but Sakura decide to take the opportunity and strike.

"Naruto, protect Tazuna, Sasuke cover me." she yelled, Sakura loaded her fist with chakra. Sasuke threw a few shuriken as a distraction effectively distracting the brothers and giving Sakura enough time to punch them. She managed to punch the 1 of the brothers sending him flying in a tree, making him pass out. Meanwhile, Sasuke dealt with the other brother, punching him in the face and then immobilising him with a kunai at the throat.

Kakashi reapered and praised them for their teamwork and scared Naruto about the poisoned hand. While Sakura treated Naruto's hand, Kakashi questioned the brothers, well the conscious one at least.

After the whole incident they camped for the night. The next day, they left for the land of waves. Sakura decided not to interfere too much with this battle. She let Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke fight while she protected Tazuna. After a while, Haku appeared and 'killed' Zabuza. After he left she went to support Kakashi-sensei, before he would fall to the ground.

"Sakura-chan! What happened to Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto.

"Chakra depletion. I'm guessing it's from using the Sharingan too much." answered Sakura.

"Were close to my place, let's go there." said Tazuna. "The sooner we get there, the better." Sasuke went and helped Sakura hoist Kakashi up. When they arrived, they laid their sensei in bed then went to meet the bridge builder's family.


	4. Special Training

After Sakura and Sasuke made sure Kakashi-sensei won't fall off his bed in his sleep, they came back to see Naruto do what Naruto does best, piss someone off. That someone happened to be Inari, Tazuna's grandson. The 2 of them were arguing about ninjas and heroes and values, which ended with Inari storming to his bedroom. After the scene that unfolded and some scolding from Sakura, they ate dinner and went to sleep.

When morning came, Sakura slowly got out of her room and went to the kitchen. There she saw her sensei sitting at the table, reading one of his cursed books.

"Yo." said Kakashi.

"Sensei you're awake! I'm glad to see youre feeling better." Sakura took a seat at the table and poured herself some tea.

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'll manage" said her sensei.

Sakura snorted, she remembered fondly how her sensei avoided the hospital like the plague. "You speak as if chakra depletion is something to laugh at."

"You seem amused by it." She merely rolled her eyes at his statement.

"Actually sensei, I wanted to talk to you about something. It's about that ninja hunter we encountered yesterday."

"Oh?"

"I've encountered it in my training as a medic nin that you can induce a death like state using senbons. Since the only way to kill with them is by piercing a vital organ and that hunter nin pierced Zabuza's neck, I've concluded that the hunter nin might be his ally." said the pinkette.

"Hmm, that is a pretty good assumption Sakura, seeing that hunter nins usually dispose of the body. I think you might be right." said Kakashi.

Sakura nodded."We should tell the boys." Just then Naruto entered the kitchen loudly, talking about food with Sasuke behind him. After they relayed the information to Naruto and Sasuke, Kakashi concluded that they were going to train, in order to be ready to face Zabuza. After they ate breakfast, they made their way to the forest.

Once they arrived, Kakashi decided to teach them how to climb trees without using hands. He started climbing the tree while explaining the exercise. Saying how the right amount of chakra needed to be exerted in order for this to work. After the explanation, he told them to try.

Sakura, raced up the tree with speed, when she reached the top she looked down to see her teammates stare at her amazed. Sakura smirked.

"Well? Are you two just going to make me wait up here? Come on!" She smiled when she saw determination build in their eyes. They both sprang up the tree. Marked the spot where they stopped with a kunai and started again. While they kept on climbing, Sakura came down to watch them next to Kakashi-sensei. They kept watching the boys train, only stopping them to give advice, until sunset.

"Ok boys, last round. After this we'll go back to rest." said Kakashi-sensei. Both boys nodded determined and sprang up the tree for the last time. Sasuke climbed about 4 meters and marked the tree, but what shocked them was that Naruto kept climbing, at least 2 meters higher.

"Woohoo, see that Sasuke? I'm so much better than you." said Naruto, grinning. This, clearly angered the Uchiha, who glared daggers at his blonde companion. The Jinchūriki kept on celebrating, while Sakura tried her best to be happy for him. While it was good that Naruto improved, this also worried her, since this didn't happen last time. She couldn't help but have a bad feeling about this. Would Sasuke's anger flare faster? Will he leave the village again? Those thoughts scarred her deeply.

They all walked back to the house and ate the food that Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami, made. After talking about the mission a bit, they all prepared to go to sleep. Sakura laid on her futon thinking about Zabuza and Haku, she stood there with her eyes closed, engulfed in thought until she heard a door open and close. She concluded it was Naruto going away to meet Haku for the first time, but after a while she heard it open and close again. Sakura looked around her room and realized that both Naruto and Sasuke's futons were empty. She quickly stood up and decided to follow her raven haired teammate. She stepped out of the house and followed Sasuke's chakra signal in the forest.

She found him practicing tree climbing. Of course, the stubborn Uchiha just couldn't admit that Naruto was simply better than him at something. She stood there quietly and watched him try and try and try again. Eventually he reached the spot where Naruto stopped, but that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to go higher and prove he was better, superior. He kept going until he didn't have enough chakra to go higher than 1 meter. Sakura knew if she didn't stop him now, he was going to hurt himself. She came from behind him, put her hands under his armpits and started dragging him away from the three. Sasuke started jerking away from his attacker.

"Sasuke! Sasuke, stop! You're going to hurt yourself!" yelled Sakura while trying to restrain him. Once Sasuke recognized the voice, he stopped jerking and Sakura released him.

"What are you doing here, Sakura?" asked the avenger.

"Cutting your little exercise short, you should be resting, not climbing trees." she answered.

"It's none of your business." he said coldly.

"Actually, as your teammate and the medic of this team, it kinda is." said Sakura.

"You don't understand..."

"Understand what, Sasuke?"

"I need to get stronger, if that dobe can beat me, how the hell am I supposed to get my revenge?"yelled Sasuke.

Sakura's eyes softened a bit at his statement. "Well then enlighten me, Sasuke, if you collapse in the middle of battle and die, how are you going to get your revenge?"

"What?"

"Look I understand you need to get stronger, I understand your need for revenge, but training yourself to the point of collapsing will get you nowhere. You'll only hurt yourself. Strength doesn't come overnight, trust me. You need rest. So please, come back to the house with me." said Sakura while gripping his shoulder. Sasuke's eyes widened at her statement, he reluctantly gave her a nod and she smiled in response. They both walked back to the house in comfortable silence.


	5. Bloody Needles

Morning came and Sakura found herself eating breakfast with Sasuke and Kakashi. Sasuke was drinking his tea, when Naruto barged in. He looked extremely disheveled and he was also panting.

"Guys you're not gonna believe me, but...I think I just meet the hottest guy ever..." said Naruto. Sasuke spit his tea.

"WHAT?" asked Sakura.

Naruto started explaining his encounter with the boy and how he thought it was a pretty girl. He went as far as to compare him with other females they knew. Sakura realized that Naruto must have meet Haku without his mask. The boy had really feminine features, using that to his advantage in his missions for the rogue nin.

After hearing Naruto's weird encounter, they all finished breakfast and went to act as bodyguards for Tazuna while he worked. That's how team 7 spent the following days, protecting Tazuna and training. As much as she enjoyed this, Sakura knew she needed to prepare for Zabuza, so she started gathering her weapons and counted her poisoned ones.

Next morning Team 7 came across a horrific sight. All of Tazuna's workers were laying in pools of blood. Sakura rushed to check their pulse. She shook her head when she realized they were dead.

"W-what happened here?" asked Tazuna, his expression, a combination of disbelief, grief and fear. She walked back to her teammates when a thick fog started spreading in the aria.

"This is..." said Naruto.

"Zabuza's fog..." said Sasuke.

"Protect Tazuna!" ordered Kakashi.

A deep chuckle echoed through the fog. "Kakashi...I see your brats are still here...Look at that one, he's so scared he's trembling." said Zabuza.

Sasuke smirked, an attempt at hiding his fear "I'm trembling because I'm exided." then he and Naruto recklessly attacked Zabuza's clone.

"Brats, I'll leave this to you, Haku." said Zabuza while appearing with Haku next to him.

"Looks like you were right about him, Sakura. His story was a scam." said Kakashi. Sakura gripped her kunai in response. Both the boys started attacking Haku. Sasuke and Haku's kunais clashed while Naruto attacked him with his shadow clones. Haku dodged the attack almost effortlessly. If Naruto and Sasuke worked together, they could defeat Haku. _If_ they worked together, sadly that wasn't the case. Both of them were attacking recklessly, mostly nullifying each other's attacks in an attempt to strike the masked boy.

"Stop getting in my way, dobe." said Sasuke.

"Me? You're the one who keeps dispelling my shadow clones with your stupid shuriken, Teme." said Naruto. Both boys glared at each other.

Haku saw them arguing and used this opening to perform the hand signs for Makyō Hyōshō. Sakura's feet moved before her brain could register. She quickly pushed the boys away from the mirrors, effectively trapping herself. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit_ was all Sakura could think as she saw the mirrors surround her.

"Sakura!" "Sakura-chan!" cried the boys.

"Don't come near, or you'll get trapped too." she yelled at them. They were about to protest when another Zabuza water clone came at them. They both started fighting it.

Sakura saw Haku in one of the mirrors and glared. "You shouldn't have done that, now you'll die." said the boy as he trew senbons. Sakura blocked the sebons coming at her with her kunai. Then she dodged more coming from behind her again and again. This was getting her nowhere, she needed to finish this and quickly. At first she tried running out of the dome, but she was stopped by an invisible barrier that threw her back. _Ok, so that wasn't working..._ Maybe she can shatter them. She did a backflip while dodging some senbons and pulled a kunai. Once she landed she threw it at the mirror but she was surprised to see Haku catching it.

After her last attempt at escaping, Haku increased his pace. The senbons were coming at her, faster and in increased number. This time 2 of them struck her shoulder. Sakura gasped in pain. _This wasn't good..._ The needles keeped coming and every time she dodged, minimum 2 got her. Sakura threw another kunai, just to catch her breath. She looked terrible, multiple senbons sticking out of her arms and legs, she had even more embedded in her back. When another one grazed her cheek, she decided it was too close to home. She needed to do something, but what? That's when she heard Naruto call more shadow clones and suddenly it clicked. That's it, she knew how to get out.

"N-Naruto! Make 10 clones and tell them to surround the dome. We need to hit the mirrors simultaneously, got it?" yelled Sakura.

"You got it Sakura-chan" said Naruto, as he and Sasuke finished Zabuza's clone. In a puff of smoke, the clones appeared, surrounding the dome. Sakura quickly hit the mirror and one by one, all of them cracked. She panted as she watched the dome shatter around her.

She felt her teammates approach her. "...em out..." said Sakura.

"What?" asked Naruto.

"Pull them out!" said Sakura with a raspy voice. Both boys nodded and started pulling out the needles. Sasuke pulled the ones from her back while Naruto took care of the ones in her arms and legs. After they got rid of all of them, they laid Sakura on her back, she was facing them.

"Sakura..." breathed Sasuke. "Why?" asked Naruto.

Sakura merely chuckled." Because...I care about you both...very much...and I didn't want you two...to get hurt..."

"So you just decided to get hurt instead of us?" whispered Sasuke.

Sakura stretched her arms and touched Sasuke and Naruto's cheek. "If it meant...keeping you safe...then yes." as she said that, Sakura felt darkness take her. The last thing she heard was her teammates call her name.

...

The first thing Sakura registered when she woke up was Tazuna looking concerned at her. The next was pain, a LOT of pain. She slightly winced when she stood up.

"Oh Sakura! Thank goodness, the boys were really scared when you passed out... " said Tazuna.

The boys? That's right they were fighting Haku and then she and Naruto broke the mirrors. "What happened after I passed out?"

Tazuna frowned "I don't really know how to explain it, but I think they thought you died and then something weird happened with Naruto. Suddenly he was having this weird red cloak-like thing around him and attacked the masked boy. The way he fought, it was almost animalistic." _The Nine-Tails chakra..._

"I see...Where are they now?" And as if to answer her question she heard Naruto yell."Nevermind..." She started walking towards the sound of her best friend, ignoring Tazuna's protests. She needs to get to them, to protect them! She got close enough to see Zabuza swing his sword at Kakashi, if it made contact her sensei would be dead. Quickly she pumped chakra in her leg and kicked the ground with a resounding CRACK, effectively throwing Zabuza off balance. Both men jumped away from each other.

"Sakura-chan! You're alive!" exclaimed Naruto. She also saw Sasuke looking quite relieved. She was about to answer them when got cut off by Gatō. The little gremlin started explaining his plan to Zabuza, about not paying him. Zabuza got a dark look in his eye and told Kakashi they weren't enemies anymore. Gatō ordered his men to attack and Zabuza cut through them like wet paper. When he got in front of the crime lord he simply decapitated him. He was about to walk away when Naruto called him out about Haku. Zabuza's comment about not caring what happened to his 'tool' clearly angered Naruto, who slapped Zabuza with a good dose of Talk no Jutsu. Then he collapsed of his injuries and like last time, he asked team 7 to lay him next to Haku.

That's when Sakura noticed something weird about Haku, his chest was rising, he was breathing... "He's alive."she said almost automatically. All eyes were on her.

"What do you mean, pinky?" asked Zabuza.

"You heard me, he's breathing, but he will die if he doesn't get medical attention. I can help you, i-if you'll let me..."

"Do whatever you want kid." was Zabuza answer, she looked for permission at Kakashi who nodded. She crouched and started working on both their injuries, both hands glowing green with medical chakra. After she stabilized them both she started feeling the effects of chakra depletion. She felt arms hoist her from behind and was surprised to see it was Sasuke who helped her.

"Why? Why help us brat? We almost killed you and your team, yet you still healed us." said Zabuza.

Sakura sighed "Yes, you did almost kill us and I'll never forgive you for that, but...if there was a chance I could have helped you...I had to take it...I will always help a person if I can...It's just how I am..." she started seeing black spots around her vision"Maybe...I'm just...too soft...to be...a ninja." And then she fainted again.

...

Sakura woke up to the white ceiling of Tazuna's house. She was lying on her futon, her arms and legs being bandaged and her back too. She was about to get out of the futon when she saw someone walk in. It was Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei!" said Sakura.

"Sakura, I'm glad to see you are awake. How are you feeling?" said her sensei.

She shrugged "I'm good, it's not that bad..."

Kakashi chuckled. "Really? Because I remember a little genin that said-"

"Don't you dare use my words against me, sensei." said the pinkette.

The white haired man pat her head. "I'll go get the boys." A few minutes later Naruto and Sasuke barged in the room. Naruto practically flung himself at the girl and hugged her.

"I'm so glad you're ok, Sakura-chan!" said Naruto relieved.

"Get off of her, dobe, she's still injured." said Sasuke.

"Ah, sorry Sakura-chan, I didn't hurt you did I?" asked Naruto.

"N-no, no I'm fine, really! What happened after I passed out?" asked Sakura.

Naruto shrugged. "Nothing much really, Haku woke up and we carried you here to get your injuries treated."

"I see..."

"Do you think you can travel Sakura?" asked Sasuke. She nodded and the boys left her to pack. In about half an hour she was ready to go. Maaan was she sore... Every step hurt. She slowly made her way out of the house where she saw the rest of team 7 talk with Zabuza and Haku.

"Good to see you again, pinky!" said Zabuza. She only waved in greeting.

"What are you guys gonna do now?" asked Naruto.

Zabuza shrugged "Probably gonna stick around here, this place ain't that bad. And maybe do some missions, we'll see."

"Good luck." said Sakura. Zabuza spoke again.

"Ah, don't leave yet pinky, the brat wanted to give you something." Zabuza made a gesture for Haku to come forward. The boy came near Sakura and placed a flower crown on her head.

Sakura smiled. "Thank you, Haku, it's really beautiful."

Behind Sakura, Inari and Naruto were having their teary eyed goodbyes. Then he turned to Haku and told him he'd better keep his promise of writing letters. Apparently the 2 of them decided to become penpals. A bit later Tazuna appeared and announced the name of the bridge 'The Great Naruto Bridge'. After all of this, the 4 of them walked back home.


	6. An Actual C-rank Mission

Two weeks passed since the Wave mission and our favourite pink haired kunoichi was making her way to the Yamanaka flower shop. Shortly after team 7 crossed The Great Naruto Bridge, Sakura collapsed of exhaustion, so her teammates carried her until they reached Konoha. She remembers Naruto's worried face hovering above her and Sasuke standing near the window, looking quite relieved himself. Kakashi was standing in a chair near her bed, reading of course...

Sakura entered the flower shop and saw Ino behind the counter, reading a magazine. The blonde put the magazine down once she noticed her enter.

"Forehead! What brings you here?" asked Ino.

"Nice to see you too, pig...And I just wanted to talk to you, it feels like we haven't seen each other since forever." said Sakura.

"Well we have been busy with a lot of D-rank missions...uhh, I swear if I have to water any more gardens I'll go nuts!" said the blonde.

"You tell me...If I have to see Madam Shijimi's ugly cat again, I'll kill someone." said the pinkette.

"Oh, shut it forehead! You already got a C-rank mission, so you can't really complain."

"Yeah...A C-rank that turned A-rank, how wonderful..."

"Oh, about that...How did it become A-rank, anyway?"

Sakura grinned and told her best friend all about her mission, Zabuza and Haku, and how she nearly avoided death. The blonde had been shocked to hear what her friend has been through, but quickly regained herself. The 2 of them started chatting about flower arrangements, movies, stupid D-rank missions, again, boys, fashion and cosmetics. Time seemed to pass fast as the girls kept on talking. Sadly the 2 of them had to stop when an elderly man asked for a bouquet of roses. Ino quickly hooked up the bouquet, but stung herself in one of the thorns.

"Here, let me help." said Sakura as her hand started glowing green.

"That has to be the most amazing thing I've seen you do, Sakura." said Ino while the pinkette grinned.

"You know, I can teach you if you want..." said Sakura.

"R-really?" exclaimed Ino.

Sakura nodded and started explaining the basics and how to convey lethal chakra into healing chakra. While Sakura explained Ino took notes on a small notepad. After a while, Ino's mom came to take her daughter's place at the flower shop and the girls left to the streets of Konoha. They eventually entered a park and Sakura started looking into bushes and near trees like she lost something.

"What are you doing forehead?" asked the blonde.

"Looking for a test subject..." said Sakura.

" A what?"

"A test subject. What? You didn't expect me to be your training dummy, now did you?" Sakura laughed when she saw Ino's embarrassed face. After looking around the park for a bit she found what she was looking for.

"Aha! Here you go pig, this is you little training dummy!" She motioned to a crow with a broken wing, laying near a tree.

"I'm not touching that!" said Ino.

"Yes you are if you want to learn medical ninjutsu..." said Sakura. Ino grumbled a few insults, but went to the crow nonetheless. After a few tries and curses, Ino managed to convey the chakra and started healing the bird. She grinned to herself when she saw it fly away.

"Good job pig, you just made the first step in the path of a medical ninja! Keep this up and you'll eventually be able to heal a human."

"Thanks forehead do you think you can borrow me some of you books?"

"Sure thing pig!"

...

Next day Sakura went to the bridge to meet with her teammates. She was the first one to arrive. She sat down and leaned on a pillar, closing her eyes. While she waited she fell asleep. Twenty minutes later Sasuke arrived and saw his training partner sleeping soundlessly. He reached out his hand to wake her up, but was meet with a kunai pointing dangerously at his neck. When Sakura realized it was him, she lowered the weapon embarrassed.

"A-ah, Sasuke, sorry, I didn't know it was you..." she gave him a sleepish smile, while scratching her head.

"Hn, it's fine..." grumbled the last Uchiha. Sakura nodded and the two of them stood in awkward silence.

"S-Sooo, do you know what well be doing today?" asked Sakura.

"Probably more D-rank missions..." answered Sasuke. Sakura nodden, again, this silence was killing her, but really, what could she do? Sasuke wasn't exactly a chatterbox and their little encounter from earlier certainly didn't help... Luckly for her, just then Naruto decided to make his loud appearance.

"Oi! Sakura-chan! Sasuke-teme! Good morning!" yelled Naruto while running to them. Sakura waved at him. Leave it to Naruto to lift the mood.

"Hn, dobe..." greeted Sasuke in his own way.

"What was that, bastard?" yelled Naruto.

_Aaaand there they go..._ Sakura shook her head and watched her two teammates bicker. They kept arguing for a while until Naruto had the genius idea to push Sasuke in the river. Startled, the last Uchiha grabbed the nearest thing in reach, which just so happened to be Naruto. Thus dragging them both in the water. Sakura watched her teammates swim up to the surface. When she saw the two of them soaked to the bone she couldn't help herself but laugh. Sasuke glared at her while Naruto whined.

"Sakura-chaaan! It isn't funny..." whined Naruto.

"Pfft, you're right Naruto, this isn't funny...pfhahaha...this is hilarious!" laughed Sakura. She helped them both get back on the bridge, while trying to stifle her laughter. Some time later Kakashi made his appearance. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the 2 boys wet. He was about to ask what happened, but Naruto and Sasuke beat him to it.

"Don't ask!" they grumbled, which only seemed to provoke more laughter from their pink haired teammate.

"R-right, so I've got us another mission, and Its C-rank, so meet me at the gates in 1 hour, bye!" and then Kakashi shunshin-ed away. After that the boys went home to change and meet Kakashi and Sakura at the gates.

"So, sensei, what are we doing today?" asked Sakura.

"Were supposed to get a rare medicinal plant, at the edge of the Land of Fire, the tenuifolia." answered Kakashi. Sakura scowled when she heard the name of plant.

"What's wrong, Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

"The tenuifolia blossom is very hard to obtain, its a parasitic plant that lives off of vines, it's only found in some parts of fire country, and even there it's pretty scarce...Not only that, the plant itself is fragile and needs to be handled with extreme care, one wrong move and the flower will get destroyed. Oh, and it's the primary food for a species of snakes, that lives there. This flower is just a big pain in the ass, honestly." said Sakura

"That's right Sakura, I see you're well informed." said Kakashi. After this team 7 made left Konoha at a light pace. They were walking on foot, with Naruto fueling the silence with his loud talking. The swamp where the flower was located was as far as half a day worth of walking. Judging by their pace, they would get back home late in the night.

...

Once Naruto got inside the swamp, he darted to a to the nearest tree and kept on looking for the plant, jumping from tree to tree.

"Maa, Naruto, don't go jumping around pointlesly..." said Kakashi. Sakura chuckled at her teammate's antics, the blonde jumped down next to Sasuke and started annoying the raven haired male. Just then she saw a snake creep up behind them, ready to bite one of them. Sakura got a quick flashback of Orochimaru and immediately pulled out a kunai, hitting the snake in the head, killing it. Both of her teammates widened their eyes and looked at her.

"SAKURA-CHAN! WHAT THE HECK, YOU ALMOST KILLED ME!" yelled Naruto.

"Uhmm...sorry, I don't really like snakes." said Sakura nervously.

Kakashi coughed lightly. "Aaa, Sakura? Is this the tenuifolia blossom?" the silver haired man pointed upwards. The three genin looked up to see a small purple flower, slightly hidden by vines. Oh, and snakes, lots and lots of snakes.

Sakura sighed "Sadly, yes...that is the flower."

"Woah! That's a lot of snakes..." said Naruto.

"How are we supposed to get passed them?" asked Sasuke.

Naruto, quickly pulled a kunai with an explosive tag and threw it at the snakes. "Like this!"

Sakura widened her eyes. "Naruto no-" but it was too late, the kunai exploded the snakes along with the plant itself.

"Ups..."said Naruto. Now thanks to Naruto, team 7 spent the next 5 hours searching for the plant and dodging snakes. Eventually, they found another one, this one without snakes around it. Sakura quickly climbed the three and slowly cut the plant with her kunai. She was almost done, when a snake appeared out of nowhere, scarring the girl and making her fall. Seeing their teammate fall, Naruto and Sasuke sprang up the tree to catch Sakura. In the end the 3 genin collided with each other and fell together, while tangling themselves in the vines.

"Dobe, get your foot out of my face!""You get off of me first, teme!""Sasuke, you're elbowing me in the ribs!""Sakura-chan, you're squishing me!""Naruto! Watch where you put your hand!"

"Well, congrats, team! You managed to get the flower!" said Kakashi, holding the tenuifolia.

All 3 genin glared at their sensei, still tangled in the vines.

"What?" asked the Jōnin, innocently.

"HELP US!" they all roared.

"Hmm, nah...you guys got this."


	7. Sand Shinobi In My Village

One week passed since the snakey mission and Sasuke found himself standing at the bridge all alone. This was a bit weird, for the last Uchiha since usually, Sakura would be there first, either reading a new medical scroll or chatting with him. Well, she would talk while Sasuke would give approving or disapproving grunts once in a while. But she always seemed to understand what he meant, so it worked out. Then Naruto would show up and talk with Sakura before annoying him for a bit. It was their weird routine of sorts...Speaking of Naruto, just then the loud blonde reached the bridge.

"Oi! Sasuke! Where's Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto. Sasuke shrugged in response. "What if something happened to her?!" exclaimed the blonde.

"Calm down, dobe, she's probably just late..." said Sasuke.

"What did you call me, teme?!"

"Dobe."

"Teme!"

"Dead-last."

"Duck butt!"

"Yo!" said a new voice. Naruto and Sasuke spun around to greet their sensei.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Nice greeting there Naruto...

"Ah, well you see there was this old lady that-"

"LIAR!"

"Maa, Naruto don't be mean to me, Sakura isn't here yet, either..." said Kakashi.

Naruto was about to retort when he got interrupted by their last teammate."SORRY I'M LATE!" three heads turned around to see their female teammate run towards them. "I had the morning shift today at the hospital and it took longer than expected. I hope I didn't miss anything..." Sasuke realised that she was still in her hospital atire. Sakura somehow managed to tie her short hair in a really messy ponytail. She wore a red and white dress with the Haruno crest in the front, a lab coat, black heeled boots and...were those fishnet stockings? If she didn't have her hitai-ate, you could have easily mistook her for a civilian medic.

"No, no you didn't miss anything, I was just telling the boys about the Chūnin Exams." said Kakashi. Sakura widened her eyes. The Chūnin Exams brought 2 big enemies, Orochimaru and Gaara. Since the moment she came to the past she could only think about the snake sannin. She had gone over every strategy that was possible, from poisoning him, summoning Lady Katsuyu, to telling the Hokage...Gaara, while dangerous, wasn't as much of a threat, since Naruto was going to deal with him.

"EXAAAAMS? NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T WANT ANY MORE EXAMS!" yelled Naruto.

"Dobe. It's not a written test, it's a promotion." said Sasuke.

"Alright! I'm definitely getting promoted, dattebayo!" exclaimed Naruto.

"Well, then here are the forms for the exam, just go tomorrow at the academy and register yourselves." said Kakashi before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Well, let's go eat! This may be our last meal as genin!" said Sakura. She saw the determination build in Naruto and Sasuke's eyes. They both agreed and made their way towards Ichiraku. On the way, Sakura realised that a square rock with eyes was following them, or more like following Naruto.

"Pssh, Naruto...there's a square rock following you..." said Sakura in a mock whisper. The blonde groaned.

"Square rocks don't exist Konohamaru..." said Naruto. There was a huge puff of smoke and Konohamaru appeared, striking a cool pose.

"As expected from my boss!" said the boy."Whatcha doin, boss? Is this your girlfriend?"

"Why of course, Sakura-ch-" Naruto was interrupted as Sakura's fist met his face. "Don't lie you idiot!" yelled the pinkette.

"Doesn't matter, you're ugly anyway..." said Konohamaru.

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME? SHANNNNAROOO!" Sakura cracked her knuckles in anger. Naruto and Konohamaru started running from Sakura's rage. Sasuke shook his head at the scene.

***thud***

"Oi brat! Watch where you're going!" said a boy with face paint while picking up Konohamaru. "Seems like I need to teach you a lesson in manners."

"LET GO OF ME! I'M THE SANDAIME'S GRANDSON!" yelled the tiny boy.

"It's not wise to pick a fight in a foreign village, sand shinobi. I suggest you let him go." said Sakura.

"She's right, let's just go, Kankuro..." said a blonde girl.

"No way Temari, I need to teach this brat some respect!" said Kankuro.

"I swear if we get kicked out of here because of you..." Said Temari. Sakura got tired of this and not-so-lightly slapped Kankuro's hand and freed the little boy.

"How come you're not cool like that?!" yelled Konohamaru at Naruto. The puppeteer was fuming and it looked like he was gonna yell at Sakura, but a red haired boy stopped him. _Gaara..._

"Kankuro, drop it or i'll kill you!" said Gaara.

"Y-yes Gaara." said Kankuro, scared.

"What business do you have in Konoha?" asked Sasuke.

"We're here for the Chūnin Exams." said the blonde girl.

"COOL! We're participating too, we're so kicking your asses, dattebayo!" said Naruto.

"We'll see." said the puppeteer while smirking.

"You two, with pink and black hair, identify yourselves." said Gaara.

"I'm Sasuke Uchiha and this is Sakura Haruno, who are you?" asked the avenger.

"Sabaku no Gaara."

"And I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" yelled the blonde proudly. Gaara nodded then left with Temari and Kankuro. Team 7 looked at their retreating forms and left towards Ichiraku.

...

After she ate with her team, Sakura went home and changed in her training outfit. She took 2 scrolls that she bought the other day and went to meet Sasuke for their daily training. She was grateful to last Uchiha for training with her, even though he was a slave driver. She could proudly say that since she came to the past, her stamina and strength improved greatly. Sasuke's chakra control training ended a few days after the wave mission, but he still trained with her, even if he could have chosen not to. And now it was time to pay him back for putting up with her. The other day, she went and bought a scroll for a Katon Jutsu that she thought Sasuke might want.

Sakura arrived at the training ground. She saw Sasuke practice his Shuriken throwing. He threw 2 shuriken at the same time, that collided and sent each other at their designated targets. Saying that it was impressive was an understatement.

"Now that was impressive." said Sakura while grinning at the Uchiha. Sasuke turned around and gave a grunt of acknowledgement, before smirking. Sakura took one of the scrolls and waved it lightly in front of the avenger. "I've got you something." said the pinkette.

Sasuke raised a brow and made his towards the medic. "What is that?"

"Well, I know you're really good at Katon Jutsus, so I went out and bought you a scroll that contains one." She gave Sasuke the scroll and he started reading it, before he mumbled a thanks.

"No problem, I guess it's a good thing I saw it, since the Chūnin Exams are coming up." said Sakura.

"And what's in the other scroll?" asked Sasuke.

"Oh! It's the new poison gas I ordered from Suna, they make them really strong there. I'm gonna turn it liquid then dip my weapons in it. I can't really do it at home and risk intoxicating half the civilian district, so the training ground will have to do." said Sakura.

"What kind of poison did you order this time?" asked the Uchiha like it was the most normal thing in the world. In the weeks that he trained with Sakura, Sasuke learned that the girl had a love for using poison in combat. There were a lot of nights when the avenger would train alone while his partner grinned like maniac while playing with her newest scroll. He swears he heard her evil laughter once.

"Paralysis. It _was_ supposed to come last week, but nooo, they _had_ to be _late_." said the medic.

Sasuke chuckled. "You didn't kill the delivery guy, did you?"

"Ha ha, very funny and _no_ , I didn't kill him. Just...threatened to castrate him if he was ever late again..."said the pinkette.

"How is that any better?" asked Sasuke.

"S-shut up! Don't you have a jutsu to learn." said Sakura embarrassed. Sasuke smirked and started practicing the new jutsu from the scroll: Great Dragon Fire Technique


	8. Chūnin Exam, Here We Come

The next day, team 7 made its way to the academy. Naruto was chatting excitedly with Sakura, while Sasuke walked beside them. When they entered, they walked up the stairs and stopped at the second floor. Sakura looked at the sign that read 301. Somewhere upfront stood Izumo and Kotetsu, beating up genin. Lee to be exact. The medic half listened as the 2 chūnin scarred the genin with their speech. She sighed and turned her head towards Sasuke.

"You can see it too right?" asked the pinkette.

"Hn. Genjutsu...This is the second floor." said Sasuke. The crowd started murmuring surprised that someone found this out. Kotetsu laughed and congratulated the 2 genin for seeing the genjutsu before throwing a kick that was stopped by Lee. After this, the green spandex ninja turned towards Sakura.

"My name is Rock Lee, please be my girlfriend! I shall protect you with my life!" said Lee.

"Umm, Hi! I'm Sakura Haruno, and sorry, but I don't feel like dating anyone at the moment." said Sakura.

"It's alright my love, I shall wait for you!" said Lee.

Sakura murmured the quickest _no thanks I'm good_ then dragged Naruto up the stairs before he could pounce on Lee. She looked back and saw Sasuke talk with Neji. "Sasuke, let's go!" The Uchiha turned and walked up the stairs with his teammates. Team 7 reached the third floor when they got stopped by Lee.

"What do you want?" asked Sasuke.

"I want to fight, right here and right now!" answered Lee. After the genin had their weird challenge conversation, with Rock Lee doing most of the talking, the green spandex boy declared his love for Sakura again. Sakura showed the most unimpressed face she could muster before popping all the hearts Lee fired at her.

Sasuke stepped in front of Sakura with an emotionless expression. "Let's get this over with."

Before Sasuke could attack, Naruto charged in and got pounded by Lee. Sakura rand and caught Naruto before the blonde could hit the wall. Her hands glowed green as she healed his bruises. After this Lee proceeded to wash the floor with Sasuke and his pride. Lee unwrapped the bandages on his arms, but before he could attack the Uchiha, a turtle stopped the fight. Sakura caught Sasuke and started healing him. On the other side of the room, the turtle was lecturing Lee about using that jutsu only when it was absolutely necessary. It turned out the turtle was Guy-sensei. Sasuke and Naruto were creeped out by the similarity between the 2, and even more so when they started talking about the springtime of youth. Before the boys can say anything a dark aura settled in the room and all 4 males turned towards the source, Sakura. Sasuke and Naruto gulped.

"What were you 2 thinking, fighting before the exam started, do you know how many ninja from foreign villages are here? Are you 2 trying to show them your skill aND BECOME LIVING TARGETS?!" yelled the medic. In reality, Sakura didn't give 2 shits about the foreign ninja, it was Kabuto she was worried about. She really didn't need him to see more of Sasuke's skills."YOU'RE BOTH COMPLETE IDIOTS!" and then she punched them both in the head. Sakura sighed. "Lets just go..."

She ignored their protests as she dragged her teammates towards Kakashi. The white haired man told them he was proud of them and that he wished them good luck, before poofing away. Later the rest of the rookie 9 showed up and Sakura went straight to Ino. The pink haired girl whispered something the blonde's ear. The girls looked at each other before nodding.

They both pointed a finger and yelled "HINATA!" The Hyūga heiress flinched at the loud noise before she scrambled to the girls.

"H-hello Ino, Sakura. What can I help you with?" asked Hinata.

"Hinata, we know that you like Naruto." said Sakura.

"And we are going to help you 2 get together." said Ino.

The white eyed girl blushed at the statement."Am I really that obvious?" she asked.

Ino and Sakura nodded. "But not obvious enough for that dense rock..." grumbled Ino.

"Don't worry Hinata, were here for you." said Sakura

"Thank you girls." said Hinata.

"Hey you guys might wanna keep it down, don't wanna anger the other participants right?" said a new voice. _Kabuto._ "See those guys, they're from Ame, very touchy, everyone is. You don't wanna rub them the wrong way now do you?"

"Who are you?" asked Kiba.

"Kabuto Yakushi, nice to meet you! I'm gonna take a wild guess that you're the rookies?" they all nodded."That explains it, you guys really remind me of my first time."

"This isn't the first time you took the exam?" asked Shikamaru.

"Nope...this would be...my seventh time... But maybe I can help you with...my ninja info cards." said Kabuto.

"What the heck is that?" asked Ino.

"They are chakra encoded cards with everything I learned in my past experiences. I can't promise they are perfect, but they do have info on everyone...including you guys." answered Kabuto proudly. Each of the rookie nine asked about a specific individual, when Kabuto looked at Sakura, she sent him a glare.

"How do you even have info on us? We haven't been to any past chunin exams. Did you spy on us?" said Sakura. She really hoped someone would catch on to this, put the cards down and ignore Kabuto for the rest of the exam.

"W-what? Of course not, just things I've learned since you guys came to the third floor, you're teammates did fight just now you know..." said Kabuto. Sakura saw Sasuke and Shikamaru put the cards back, obviously not trusting the white haired 'genin' anymore. Leave it to the trust issues Uchiha and genius Nara to catch onto this.

"Oh, I see, sorry if I sounded rude. I was just curious you see..." said Sakura, faking guilt. After this, Naruto had his outburst about beating everyone. The sound ninja attacked Kabuto, he let himself get hit and threw up. Just then the doors swung open and in stepped Ibiki.

"Alright you baby faced degenerates, listen up. I am Ibiki Morino, proctor for the first part of the chūnin exams, and from this moment forward, your worst enemy." He said glaring the entire room. "First, you sound genin. Who told you, you could fight? Want to fail the exam before it even starts?" The sound ninja apologised before letting Ibiki continue. "Alright, I'll say this only once: there will be no combat between candidates unless your proctor said so and no use of fatal force. Violation of those rules will get you expelled from the exam. Now, if we're ready we'll proceed to the exam."


	9. Welcome to the Jungle

All the genin picked a number and took a seat in the examination room. Surprisingly she was seated next to Gaara this time. She inwardly gulped at the killing intent he was emanating. Shukaku sure wasn't a nice thing. And that's putting it _extremely_ lightly. She can't wait until Naruto beats some sense into the red head.

She looked around the room and saw Naruto in the front row, next to Hinata. Behind Hinata was Ino. She could bet her money Ino was going to to use her mind transfer jutsu on the Hyūga heiress. In the back of the room she saw Sasuke seated behind a hidden chunin. _Lucky bastard._ That guy probably has the answers to every question. Next to Sasuke sat Kiba.

After everyone was seated, Ibiki started explaining the written exam. It was so obvious they were supposed to cheat, especially when he said that you had 5 chances at cheating. Once Ibiki said start, the pinkette quickly started writing the answers. They were so easy, at least for her. Half an hour into the exam and she started noticing others cheating. Ino was slumped on her desk, meaning that she entered Hinata's mind. Neji had activated his Byakugan. She could see Shino's bugs float around and hear Akamaru barking answers to Kiba, most likely Sasuke's. Eventually the time for the 10th question came and a few genin started quitting.

"Damn it! I'm not a coward! Give me your stupid question! I'll still become Hokage, even if I'm just a genin!" yelled Naruto. After the little outburst, the genin stopped raising their hands and waited for the 10th question. When Ibiki said there was no question and that they all passed, she saw people sigh in relief. Just then Anko made her loud entrance.

"HEADS UP LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS NO TIME FOR A CELEBRATION! I'M YOUR PROCTOR FOR THE SECOND PART...ANKO MITARASHI! Ready for my exam? Great! Let's move it!" exclaimed the woman.

"You're early...again..." said Ibiki.

"Wowie, Ibiki! Is this how many passed? You're getting soft. Your test was way to easy." said Anko.

"Or it may be a stronger batch of candidates this year..." said Ibiki.

"Yeah right, once I'm through with them, I'll reduce their numbers in half! I'll tell your squad leaders where to meet me, dismissed." said Anko. After Anko left the genin made their way out of the academy.

"So, you guys wanna go to Ichiraku?" asked Naruto.

"Sorry Naruto, I still have my shift at the hospital. Maybe after the exams?" said Sakura.

"You got it Sakura-chan! Teme? Wanna come?" asked Naruto.

"Hn."

"That's not a real answer, teme." said Naruto.

"I think that's a yes. Uchiha-nese is an easy language once you get the hang of it." said Sakura, while laughing."Here, let me teach you." She brought Naruto's face close to her's as they both stared at Sasuke, who raised an eyebrow. "He raised his eyebrow, which means he doesn't believe me and thinks the name Uchiha-nese is stupid. Now he's frowning but his eyes widened a bit, he's surprised but still doesn't believe I can understand his weird alien language." While Sakura was reading Sasuke's emotions like an open book, Naruto was laughing his butt of as Sakura explained more and more of Uchiha-nese. "Ooh, a glare. This means he had enough of me talking. Ah, look he turned his head, that means he is embarrassed, maybe he finally admitted defeat?" Sasuke glared at Sakura, again, this time a bit red."Maybe not...Oh well, you can also understand Kaka-sensei with this. He's just the advanced version since you can only see his eye." By that time Naruto was struggling to breathe between laughs. In the end Naruto went alone to eat with a black eye, courtesy of one angry Sasuke, after the blonde tried to read his expressions like Sakura. Apparently only she can get away with this.

...

The next day, the genin met outside of the forest of death. Anko was standing in front of the participants and explained the second exam. Sakura tuned her out as she thought about what was to come inside the forest. Orochimaru was there. Last night she made a plan to stop him from giving Sasuke the curse mark. She really, really hoped it will work, because if not, she honestly didn't know what to do.

Her train of thoughts were interrupted when Anko grazed Naruto's cheek with her kunai. Then she went behind the blonde and licked the blood off his cheek. She saw a grass nin pick up the kunai and give it to Anko. Little did she know it was Orochimaru in disguise. The genin were each given a scroll and sent into the forest. Team 7 had a heaven scroll.

As the genin entered the death trap, they could only feel more and more on edge. Right now they kept to the trees, jumping from branch to branch to god knows where.

"Guys, can we stop?" asked Naruto. "I really, really need to pee."

"Fine..." said Sakura as she jumped down from the branch. "We should also make a plan on how to get the other scroll."

Naruto nodded as he hopped towards a bush. "Go behind it, dobe!" yelled Sasuke.

"Yeah, yeah teme!" said Naruto.

Sakura and Sasuke stood at the base of a tree and looked around, bored. They waited 10 minutes until 'Naruto' came back.

"Much better, I almost wrote my entire na-" 'Naruto' was cut off as Sakura threw a shuriken at him. "What the heck Sakura?"

"Where's Naruto?" asked Sakura.

"What do you mean, it's-" He got cut off again, this time by Sasuke, who threw a kunai at the fake blonde. "Not you too Sasuke!"

"Hn, your weapon pouch is tied on the wrong leg, the dobe is right-handed. Also Naruto always called Sakura, Sakura-chan."

"So you figured me out, eh? Impressive!" There was a puff of smoke and the genin revealed himself to be from Ame. "Now, which one of you has the scroll?" he only got glares as a reply. "Not telling me? Fine! I'll just have to beat it out of you!"

The rain ninja started running towards them at full speed. Sakura made a signal towards Sasuke and the Uchiha nodded. The medic punched the ground, making it crack under her fist, while Sasuke leaped in the air and did the hands signs for Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu. The huge fireball sent the ninja directly into a tree, making him go unconscious with burn marks all over his body.

Sakura sighed, she was about to suggest searching him for a scroll when she felt a hand choke her. She glanced behind her and saw another rain ninja halfway passed through a tree. Another one jumped into the clearing and was facing Sasuke.

"Surrender the scroll or pinky here dies." said the Ame ninja. Sasuke glared and gripped a kunai. The pinkette was having none of this shit and yelled at her teammate. "Duck!" And duck he did, as Sakura brutally ripped the ninja from the tree and threw it at his teammate, making them fly across the clearing.

She took a greedy breath of air as Sasuke went to the rain genin and knocked them out with a good hit behind the head. Then he took the scroll from the burnt one looked back at Sakura.

"You ok?" asked Sasuke.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Did they have an earth scroll?" asked Sakura.

"Heaven." said the Uchiha.

"Damn! Well let's go look for Naruto and hopefully make some sort of plan." said the pinkette. Sasuke nodded and they both went to look for their blonde teammate. Luckily they eventually found him behind a bush all tied up.


	10. First Night in the Forest

Sakura crouched down in front of Naruto and cut the rope that tied him. She entered medic-mode as she quickly examined him of any injuries. Once she gave him the ok, the three of them decided on a password, so they can recognize each other.

"Listen closely, because i'm only gonna say this once." said Sasuke. "When does a ninja strike? The answer is a ninja waits until the time is right, when the enemy sleeps and drops his guard, when his weapons lie forgotten in the stillness of the night, that is the moment for a ninja to strike. Got it?"

Sakura nodded while Naruto scratched his head, a bit confused. "You got a shorter one?"

"No, dobe. That's it." said Sasuke.

"Well excuse me teme, I thought you were going to give us a pass _word_ not a pass _speech._ " said Naruto. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Ok, now that that's out of the way, we should probably head to the tower." said Sakura.

"But we don't have the right scroll yet." said Naruto.

"True, but if we head towards the tower we may encounter a team that has both scrolls-" said Sakura.

"And then we can ambush them." finished Sasuke. "It's a good plan, the other teams may be exhausted from their previous fights. It will be easier to take the scroll."

"Exactly. So let's get going." said Sakura. They all stood up and started walking, alternating between taking the trees and walking on the ground. They were all pretty tense after the last attack, Naruto and Sasuke in case they were going to get ambushed, and Sakura because of Orochimaru. She can still remember the terror she felt last time she was here, when she first encountered the snake and froze from the killing intent he was emanating. Then she remembered him giving the Uchiha the curse mark and- Oh god, the moment curse mark first manifested. She was so sure Sasuke would have killed the sound nin, had she not have stopped him. It was something terrifying she didn't need to go through again. But what if she could stop him, what if- No she won't think like that she was going to stop the snake even if it's the last thing she did.

As night started to come, team 7 decided to camp out for the night. They found a clearing at the base of a huge rock and decided to rest there. The stone was slightly bent and would probably protect them from rain if needed. She sent the boys to look for food while she gathered fire wood.

And while Sakura was collecting wood, Naruto and Sasuke found a small stream. And a stream meant fish and fish meant food. Naruto took a stick and tied a vine around it with a worm, to try and get one. While Sasuke stood patiently at the edge of the water, trying to spot the fish and kill it with a kunai. Kinda like a cat. Eventually, Naruto got tired of waiting for the fish to bite threw the improvised fishing rod into the stream. This action scared some fish that swam directly towards Sasuke, who immediately caught them.

"Hn, dobe. Throw something again." said the Uchiha. The blonde nodded as he started throwing sticks and stones, which rilled up the fishes. They continued this action until they had enough fish.

"Alright! Now we have enough fish for all of us. Sakura-chan will be so impressed." said Naruto. Sasuke rolled his eyes. The boys came back to their makeshift camp and found that Sakura already lit up a fire. They all took a seat next to the fire and started cooking the fish on sticks.

"I'll take first shift." said Sakura.

"Hn, I'll take second and Naruto can take the last." said Sasuke. After this the boys went to sleep, leaving Sakura to her thoughts. She was extremely twitchy and hyperaware of everything. But really, could you blame her? She basically had the weight of the world on her shoulders. After she dealt with Orochimaru, next would be the Akatsuki, and boy she didnt want to deal with that. But she had to, she owed her shishou at least that much. Oh, how much she missed Tsunade, it would be extremely useful to have her here. But she had to wait, she won't see her until after the chunin exams. Not until the third dies and she comes back to become hokage. She felt bad about the third, but really, what could she do? He needed to die so Tsunade can come back and the council can lose power. Some things just can't be changed.

Sakura was jolted out of her thoughts when she heard a small groan. She quickly took her kunai and looked around, until she realized the groan came from Sasuke. The Uchiha was tossing and turning, groaning and mumbling incoherent things in his sleep. He was having a nightmare. The pinkette's eyes softened a she made her way to him. She crouched next to him and looked at his pained expression. He was probably dreaming about the uchiha massacre. She started calling his name as she gently shook his shoulder. She was about to call his name again when his eyes snapped open. Before she knew what was happening she found herself pinned under Sasuke, one hand binding her wrists, the other pressing a kunai to her neck. Sasuke widened his eyes when he realized it was Sakura and he put his kunai back.

"Sorry." he mumbled.

"It's fine. Can you get off of me?" asked Sakura.

"A-Aa." the Uchiha blushed slightly as he climbed off of her.

Sakura got up and then took a seat next to Sasuke. "Are you ok?"

"Aa." Sasuke nodded.

Sakura looked at him and bit her lip. "Y'know if-if you ever wanna talk about it... I'm here for you and not just me. I'm sure Naruto and Kakashi would also be willing to listen. Um..."

"I know." said the raven haired male.

The pinkette sighed. "Just remember you're not alone, ok?" Sasuke nodded.

Sakura was about to ask him if he was going to sleep again when she felt a familiar chakra signature.

_Orochimaru_


	11. It's Gotta Work, Right?

Sasuke watched as Sakura tensed beside him,her chakra spiking slightly before she immediately hid it. He was about to ask what's wrong when she put her head on his shoulder. The sudden contact freezing him.

"We are being watched, play along until I can pinpoint from from where." said Sakura. Sasuke nodded and reluctantly put an arm around her shoulder. If Sakura took note of his reddened ears, she didn't say anything.

After a few minutes of awkwardness, the pinketter spoke again. "He's behind us, just one, roughly 60 meters away." **(A\N:60 meters=196.85ft)**

"Do you have a plan?" asked Sasuke.

Sakura turned her head towards him and nodded. She would go near the enemy under the pretext of going to the bathroom, while he would wake up Naruto. The ninja would come to attack her and while Sakura distracted him, Naruto and Sasuke would come as backup. Then the three of them would fight him.

At least that what the pinkette told Sasuke. In reality she would hide near the camp and wait for orochimaru to come to them. She knew for a fact that the snake lord wouldn't bother with a little, weak, civilian, girl and go for the big Uchiha prize. Once the snake attacks she would engage him in close combat, and poison him. Simple as that.

It's gotta work, right?

It's an easy plan, It's gotta work, right?

_RIGHT?_

...

Of course it didn't, why the hell did she think it would work. Stupid, stupid, this was a sanin, for fucks sake. Why did she think something as easy as that would work, stupid. Rightnow Sakura found herself fighting orochimaru's summon. The snake was currently towering over her, trying to swallow her whole. For now the only thing she could do was dodge, as the snake swung at her.

Sakura dodged again as the snake lunged for her and jumped up a tree. Then she used her monstrous strength and threw the tree at the summon. The snake caught the tree in his strong jaws and snapped it in 2 like a twig. Sakura 'tsked' as she landed on another tree, this stupid snake was really pissing her off. She kept jumping from tree to tree, helplessly dodging as the snake tried to eat her up.

The snake raised its tail and slammed it down, crating a wave of dirt and broken trees. The sumon, thinking it buried the pinkette alive lowerd its head to the ground when suddenly. Sakura emerged from the ground, punching the snake in its lower jaw and slamming its mouth shut.

While it was distracted she took her poisoned senbon and jabbed its eye with it. While the poison was better suited for a human, is should at least slow it down. The snake reared back in pain, hissing and trashing. She quickly took a few exploding kunais and threw them at its other eye, if she completely blinds him, she might have a chance. She jumped again as the snake lunged and trashed blindly, the eye where she threw the kunai bleeding. Good.

While the snake was blinded she quickly ran around, randomly putting chakra strings on some of the boulders and trees that got ripped out of the ground by the snake. She planned to make a trap that will hold the snake in there.

After a while the snake stopped wriggling in pain and started searching for the pinkette. Using its sense of smell, he located Sakura due to a shoulder wound that has been bleeding. The giant reptile swiftly slithered through the remains of the forest until it found its prey, standing in a clearing. He quickly opened its massive jaws and swallowed it whole.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And then spit it all out. Because it was a pile of boulders with a bloody cloth. But it was too late as Sakura pulled at the chakra strings and brought down all those trees and boulders onto the snake, effectively trapping him. The reptile twisted inside the trap, desperately trying to free himself, but it was all in vain.

With a final war cry of "SHANNNNAROOO!" the medic brought down a final boulder on the snake's head, killing it.

One snake down, _one more to go._

_..._

For the first time since the massacre Sasuke was scared. He was scared and he didn't know what to do. Let's rewind a bit. After Sakura left, he woke up Naruto, told the dobe what happened and left to find Sakura. Except they didn't find Sakura, who they found was the ninja the pinkette warned them about. He(she?) was waiting for them in a clearing, a confident smirk playing at his(her?) lips.

At first nothing much happened, Naruto did some stupid declaration about beating him and becoming chunin and then hokage. The ninja, from the grass village he noted, called him foolish and that he should hand over the scroll. Pointless words on Naruto, honestly.

After that, and a few more pointless words exchanged between the 2, the so called battle began, with Naruto making at least 50 clones and Sasuke throwing a massive fire ball towards the nin. Which he dodged, easily, but not before destroying all 50 clones with a massive attack made of snakes that bit the clones in key spots, such as the throat.

Then came the fear, pure, raw, unadulterated fear. Both boys saw images, of themselves get teared apart, of the other dying horrible deaths at the hands of the ninja. The terror they felt was so strong that neither of them could move, just stand there, shaking like leaves.

Sasuke couldn't _move_ , he couldn't _think_ , he was _frozen_.

But then here remembered something.

_"Well then enlighten me, Sasuke, if you collapse in the middle of battle and die, how are you going to get your revenge?"_

He remembered Sakura, on that night. He remembered their training. And he remembered what she tought him.

This wasn't genjutsu they were experiencing, it was killer intent. And a lot of it. Luckily he knew exactly how to deal with it.

" _When dealing with killer intent, skilled medical ninjas are able to block the fear with their chakra, however, if you are unable to do that, a lit bit of pain just does the the trick." said Sakura while winking._

Sasuke knew exactly what to do, as he reached for his weapons pouch and shakily took out a kunai.

"Dont worry, ill make sure to end this quickly" said the grassnin.

Just as the ninja threw 2 kunais towards them, the Uchiha stabbed himself in the leg and jumped out of the way, saving both himself and Naruto. Then he picked the blonde up and sprang up the trees. He ran and ran until he was sure he far enough from the snake.

Eventually the blonde snapped out of it and yelled at Sasuke to "let me go you stupid teme". So, at his request, Sasuke dropped him. He saw the blonde open his mouth again, and he was ready to tell him to shut up for whatever retort he prepared, when the blonde yelled something different.

"Sakura-chan!"


	12. The Snake

After yelling, Naruto jumped down the very broken, barley not collapsing tree that they were standing on and ran towards a clearing. Sasuke widened his eyes before he looked in the direction that Naruto ran. Sure enough, there was Sakura, standing on her knees, with her back towards them. Sasuke jumped down the three and ran towards her as well. At the second yell of "Sakura-chan!", the pinkette turned towards her teammates, and that's when Sasuke got a good look at her state. Her hair was messy with one leaf sticking grass, she was dirty like she had been buried underground and her left shoulder was bleeding.

The boys were about to approach her when she threw a kunai at their feet. Then she reached for another one and pointed with it at them. "Stay back. Password "When does a ninja strike?", Naruto goes first."

Both boys widened their eyes, before Sasuke glanged at Naruto. The blonde started panicking and was sweating bullets before he shakingly said: "Th-the password is, um...a ninja waits um, until night and has no weapons, no wait, until the enemy has no weapons and umm, sleeps? Maybe? Damn it teme why did you have to give us such a long password!" yelled Naruto and glared at the Uchiha.

Sakura snorted before she turned her kunai and eyes on Sasuke. "And you?"

The raven haired male looked at Sakura before saying the password without breaking eye contact. "A ninja waits until the time is right, when the enemy sleeps and drops his guard, when his weapons lie forgotten in the stillness of the night, that is the moment for a ninja to strike."

Sakura eyed him suspiciously "Naruto, was Sasuke with you the entire time?" asked the pinkette.

"Yeah, he was the one that woke me up, actually." said Naruto.

The medic sighed before she put her kunai back. "Alright, it really is you."

"W-wait but I didn't say the password right." said Naruto confused.

"We know Naruto, that was the whole point." said Sakura.

Naruto looked even more confused as he looked at his teammates. "We knew you don't have the brain capacity to remember it, so incase someone was listening on us, and transformed into you, only the one with the wrong answer was the real you." said Sasuke.

"Though we should have gone with something that only the 3 of know, because I know Sasuke and I can remember it but so can someone else. Next time let's just go with what book Kakashi-sensei reads or something." said Sakura.

" You guys are so mean!" yelled Naruto.

Sakura chuckled before she saw Sasuke's bleeding leg. "You're hurt." exclaimed the medic.

"I'm fine don't worry about it, besides you're the one with a bleeding shoulder." said the Uchiha.

"Which is healing as we speak, thanks for the concern. Now sit." said the pinkette. Sasuke opened his mouth to protest more but Sakura leveled him with a look. So the Uchiha sat on the ground, while Sakura healed his leg.

"The killer intent trick you told me about worked." said Sasuke.

"Oh yeah? I'm glad." said Sakura.

"What were you doing here Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

The medic shrugged. "Oh you know, just fighting that giant snake over there, trying not to get eaten, the usual." And surely both boys turned to look at the giant dead snake buried beneath a lot of threes and boulders.

Naruto looked back at Sakura with a horrified look. "Sakura-chan, what the fuck?"

The medic laughed as she finished healing both Sasuke's leg and her shoulder. She was gonna ask them what happened to themselves but before she could say anything another snake entered the clearing.

"Not again!" exclaimed the medic.

The three of them leaped away as the new snake lunged at them. Sasuke, in his panic threw his shuriken at the reptile, the weapons doing little to no damage to the reptile. Sakura and Naruto landed on a fallen tree, while Sasuke on a boulder just behind them. They all watched as the snake grossly suddenly spit the ninja from before.

"Don't lower your guard, not even for a moment, before your predator." said the grass-nin. Suddenly the snake started stretching, he was circling a tree when Sakura threw an exploding kunai in its path, the resulting explosions distracting the ninja just long enough for Sakura to grab Naruto and regroup next to Sasuke.

"We need a plan, this thing will-" said Sakura before she got interrupted by a gust of wind. The strong current blowing the 3 genin away. Luckily Naruto grabbed both Sakura and Sasuke's hand so they don't get separated. The three genin landed on a tree branch, that was still far enough to see the ninja perform the summoning jutsu. The new snake was 2 times bigger than the one that Sakura just fought.

"Ok guys I have plan, Naruto you make as many clones as you can and send them to distract the snake, then you and Sasuke try to immobilize it with your ninja wire." said Sakura.

"What are you gonna do Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

"I'll try to keep the ninja from attacking us while you deal with the snake." said Sakura.

"What are you talking about? We need to run! We can't fight that thing, we'll die! W-we, we-" exclaimed a very very panicked Sasuke.

"Oi Sasuke, I'm pretty sure running stopped being an option a long time ago." said Naruto.

"He's right, we either fight or die." said Sakura. "So what do you say, you with us Sasuke?"

The Uchiha widened his eyes before he sighed and pulled out his ninja wire. "Hn."

"Are you kiddsies done talking, because I'm done playing." said the grass-nin.

"And so am I." said Sakura as she leapt into the air. She threw 2 kunai at the ninja, that he dodged, before she landed on the snake's head. The 2 of them had an epic stare down before Sakura started running towards towards the snake, using one one of her hands a chakra scalpel to attack. The crazy disguised sanin said something about little blossoms wanting to play, but wither and die, Sakura didn't really listen, before he lunged at the pinkette with a kunai. Sakura dodged and punched him in the chest making him fall on his back, the pinkette raised a poisoned kunai, ready to strike him in the chest, but the ninja dodged at the last second, making Sakura hit the snake instead. Not that it did any damage to it, that thing has thick scales.

Meanwhile Naruto made at least 500 clones that were circling the Snake all of them were doing a good job of distracting the summon. The snake was lunging at every single one of them, which kinda made Orochimaru and Sakura's battle harder, but whatever. While Sasuke and Naruto were preparing their ninja wire. Naruto was hidden up in a tree, while Sasuke was behind a rock, both of them were waiting for the perfect moment to tie the snake. And when it came they jumped up in the air with ninja wire tied to a shuriken each. A perfectly timed throw made the shuriken collide with each other and they carefully circled each jaw of the snake, twice. Once the wire was tightly wrapped, they pulled from opposite directions, forcing the snake to open its large jaws.

"Now Naruto." yells the uchiha. And then 3 Naruto clones appeared in front of the snake's mouth and each threw 5 exploding kunais.

"Take this you stupid snake." yelled the clones as the forced the snake to swallow the kunais. Once the exploding weapons were inside the snake, the boys let go of the wire and yelled for Sakura to take cover. The pinkette used the distraction of the boys yelling to graze Orochimaru's cheek with a paralyzing kunai and embedded 2 poisoned senbon in his left knee. She jumped away at the last second but sadly the blast still got her and slammed her into a tree. She fell unconscious on a tree branch.

This must have pissed off Naruto, because he went ninetails mode and started recklessly attacking Orochimaru. Sasuke watched both amazed and horrified as Naruto started attacking Orochimaru for 12 minutes straight, before he snapped out of his daze and went to check on Sakura who was slowly starting to wake up. The Uchiha helped her stand up as she looked around. Her eyes widened when she saw Naruto lunge at Orochimaru with the ferocity of a wild animal. Suddenly the pinkette bit her finger before she slammed her palm into the ground and summoned a tiny slug.

"Oh Sakura my dear, you look terrible! What happened her?" asked the slug.

"Lady Katsuyu, we need help. We are currently fighting a very strong ninja and we're in dire need of healing, could you help us?" said Sakura. Then she looked at Sasuke's surprised and confused face before she started explaining. " Sasuke this is my summon, Lady Katsuyu, she can heal you and serve as a way of communication if were separated, ok? So I want you to take her with you."

The raven haired male nodded as the pinkette put the slug on his shoulder. "Don't worry dear, I'll get you healed up in no time." said Katsuyu as she went inside his shirt to hide. This was Sakura and Katsuyu secret plan, if things go south, the slug would get summoned to help prevent Orochimaru from giving Sasuke the curse mark.

"Alright, let's go help Naruto." said Sakura.


	13. VS Orochimaru

The 2 genin leapt off the branch and landed behind Orochimaru, the sanin being to busy dodging Naruto to notice them. Then Sasuke used Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu, burning the ninja from behind. This threw the sannin forward right into Naruto's claw/hand, who slashed at his shoulder, leaving a gash of blood. Then Sakura jumped in the air and kicked Orochimaru off the branch. The Sannin getting slammed into a tree. He tried jumping from the tree he landed on but he realized that he was stuck. When looking down, Orochimaru realized that his feet were tied to the tree with chakra strings. Chakra strings that were also tied to explosive tags. The ninja cursed as the tags exploded. The resulting explosion making the tree and Orochimaru fall down.

Before he could recover from the fall, the Uchiha was up in his face, viciously kicking and punching him. He managed to block most of them, but some hit him square in the face. He quickly used Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu, forcing the snake to dodge, before he appeared next to him and he double kicked him to the head. The snake quickly recovered and used Doton: Ganchūsō as sharp spikes started emerging from the ground with great speed. Just as it was about to hit the genin, he used his ninja wire to lift himself into the air and jump onto a tree branch. Then he used the force of impact to redirect himself towards the sannin and flew towards him with a kunai out stretched. Orochimaru blocked the upcoming attack with his own kunai, forcing Sasuke to do a backflip in order to dodge a slash from his other hand. When he landed he quickly did the seals for Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu and spits a volley of small fireballs into the air towards his attacker. This time the Sannin dodged and started running towards the Uchiha. Meeting halfway, Sasuke whipped out his kunai and started slashing at the sanin, before the snake jumped away and landed next to Naruto. There the blonde, who was himself again, made 50 clones that all attacked the Sannin. All the clones started jumping at him with a kunai raised, ready to strike. He dodged them, but a few, who were hidden managed to kick him in the back, making him fall down. All the clones quickly stabbed him in the back, before he puffed into a log. Then he appeared again and released a snake from his mouth that lunged at the clones. The reptile managed to kill a few, but not enough as the rest of the clones quickly killed it. Meanwhile Naruto quickly started attacking the ninja with a good kick to the stomach. Then another clone came from behind and attempted to punch him, but he dodged. Then he quickly sent 3 more clones after him, one of them having a poisoned kunai that Sakura gave to each of her teammates( _"In case of emergency, don't you dare lose it Naruto!"_ ). The 2 clones quickly propelled the one with the kunai forward, the 3rd one flying with speed towards the sannin, with the kunai raised, ready to strike. When he was closer, Naruto threw the kunai which made its mark. However, the sannin puffed into a cloud of smoke, revealing a log. Then Orochimaru jumped from above before something slammed into him, or rather someone.

It was Sakura, who punched the snake in the chest before they both landed on the ground, the pinkette crouching. She watched the snake take a fighting stance before both of them darted towards each other. Orochimaru raised a kunai to stab her with, that the medic dodged under, and jabbed her fist forward, sending the sannin flying a few meters. Then she ran after him and prepared to axe kick him in the head, when suddenly Orochimaru raised his head, with a sword coming out of his mouth that cut her leg clean, before she puffed in a cloud of smoke, revealing a log cut in half and appeared again next to him, aiming a poisoned kunai at his throat, that he dodged. Then he threw a kunai at her, hiting her in the head, before once again she puffed. Before appearing again next to him, slashing across his nose with a chakra scalpel. Orochimaru recoiled back before sending a wave of snakes towards Sakura. She quickly killed them by punching the ground and sending a wave of dirt towards them, burying them alive. However, one of them survived and quickly jumped at the pinkette, biting her throat, before she used the substitution jutsu again. This game of lucky hits and substitution jutsus continued for a while, before the pinkette put 1 chakra string on his back that she used to whirl him around before throwing him like a hammer into a tree. From around the tree 6 shuriken tied with ninja wire circled the tree, effectively tying him to the spot. Then suddenly, the wires caught fire as Sasuke used Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu. The flames traveled up the wire and set Orochimaru and the tree ablaze. It's screams echoed into the forest as he was burned alive.

After this, Sasuke and Naruto jumped into the clearing and landed next to Sakura. All 3 of them were tired, sweaty and panting. Sakura was about to suggest to get the hell out of here, before the 3 of them heard laughter.

"I'll have to admit, you 3 really impressed me." said the distorted voice of the ninja. "Especially you Sasuke, your eyes are even stronger than Itachi's."

"Just, w-who the hell are you?" asked Sasuke. The ninja started making its way towards the trio. Its face was half melted, revealing a pale white male face.

"Orochimaru..." said Sakura. Her 2 teammates looked at Sakura confused. "I've read about him in a book, he's one of the 3 Legendary Sannin. Konoha's greatest ninja, or rather was before he deflected the village."

"Oh? You know about me? I'm impressed... However I can't have you getting in my way little blossom." said Orochimaru before he send a snake a the pinkette that quickly encircled her and kept her on the ground. Naruto quickly turned around and started pulling at the snake that was tying his friend. Sasuke was about to help as well when suddenly, Orochimaru's neck stretched and he bit the Uchiha's shoulder.

"SASUKE!" yelled a horrified Sakura.

**(A\N: Jutsus used:**

**-Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu = Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique**

**-Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu = Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique**

**-Doton: Ganchūsō = Earth Release: Rock Pillar Spears**

**-Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu = Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique )**


	14. Confessions and Discoveries

"SASUKE!" yelled a horrified Sakura as she watched Orochimaru sink his fangs in her friend's shoulder. She failed, it was happening again. He's going to get the curse mark, and be all sorts of mad again and leave the village and it was all her fault. She should have told the hokage, she should have told Kakashi, she should have done more. S-she-

A tiny feminine cry snapped Sakura out of her thoughts. Orochimaru, hearing the cry as well lifted his head to see what happened and was meet with the tiny glare of Lady Katsuyu. The slug having taken the bite instead of Sasuke.

"Katsuyu..." said Orochimaru.

"Orochimaru! Leave! These children are under my protection. I will _not_ let you harm them!" yelled Katsuyu.

The snake sannin 'tsked' before retracting his neck to his body. "It seems I have been outsmarted... But no matter, we shall meet again Sasuke Uchiha...and you too little blossom." And then he started creepily fading into the ground before he disappeared completely.

"Sasuke!" yelled Sakura once she freed herself from the snake. "Are you ok? Are you hurt?" she asked, a bit panicked, while checking out his shoulder for any wounds. The raven haired male shook his head. "*sigh* Well that's a relief." Then she took the slug from his shoulder.

"Is that a talking slug?" asked a very confused Naruto.

"It's her summon, dobe." said Sasuke.

"Lady Katsuyu! What was that? Are you alright?" asked Sakura.

"I'm alright my dear, no need to worry. And that was Orochimaru's curse mark, or rather his attempt at giving Sasuke one." answered the slug.

"Orochimaru's curse mark?" echoed the boys.

"Yes, it is a special seal developed by him. It grants the user increased chakra levels and physical capabilities when the seal is active, howerver the seal corrodes the mind and makes them pure evil. My guess is that Orochimaru tried to give Sasuke the curse mark in order to get him on his side so that he could get Sasuke's body. I-" suddenly Katsuyu got interrupted by Naruto.

"Wait, wait, wait! Why the heck does Orochimaru want Sasuke's body?"

"For 2 reasons. One is immortality, Orochimaru changes bodies by transferring his soul to a new body. Thus, when the body gets old, he just transfers to a new one. And the second is Sasuke's sharingan. By taking over his body he would undoubtedly inherit the sharingan." said the slug.

All 3 of them stared at the slug in silence, before Naruto started talking. "Well good thing he didn't give you that curse mark, eh Sasuke?"

The Uchiha looked at Naruto with wide eyes before returning his gaze to the summon. "Hn."

"But Lady Katsuyu, you have the curse mark. Won't that affect you?" asked Sakura.

"Don't worry dear, the curse mark does not work on me. I'll be just fine." said Katsuyu.

"Well that's a relief..." said Sakura.

"Lady Katsuyu..." said the raven haired male."Thank you...For protecting me."

"Oh! It was nothing dear! I was just doing my job. Now you children better get ready. My summoning time is almost up...So before I go I wish you 3 good luck and that I look forward to you 3 becoming chunin." said the slug.

"Thank you ma'am!" said the three genin before the slug puffed away.

Sakura sighed. "Well that was...horrible...L-let's just go, before something else happens."

The boys nodded and the 3 of them started jumping up the trees, after 30 minutes of walking in silence they found a cave made by an overgrown tree's roots. They squished themselves between the small entrance, before sitting down in tense silence. Sakura was the one to break it by clearing her throat.

"Guys, before anything else I...I need to tell you guys something." said Sakura as she looked at the ground, her hair covering her eyes.

"What is it, Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

"I- Uh...There are things, things that I know, that I shouldn't know about, that would put me in danger...that would put you in danger...that would put a lot of people in danger...Stuff that I- want to tell you guys about, but I can't...Not yet at least...It's just-" Sakura,frustrated, blew air through her nose and took the boys' hands in her own. The action surprising both of her teammates as they looked at her in concern. Then she raised her head, her face showing raw desperation, tears at the corners of her eyes. "Please don't tell anyone about Lady Katsuyu. They can't know that I have her! I'm begging you!"

The boys looked confused at each other, before looking back at her. Naruto being the one that spoke. "Don't worry Sakura-chan! I won't tell anyone a thing about Katsuyu. And I'm sure teme here won't either." The blonde glancing at Sasuke.

"Hn. I won't say anything either." said the Uchiha.

"See Sakura-chan? Your secret is safe with us!" said Naruto while smiling brightly.

Sakura made a strangled noise before she broke down crying. "T-thanks you two! Thank you, so so much! You don't know how much this means to me!"

That was when the boys realized this was the first time they saw her crying. Sakura, to them, was always this strong person that brought all of them as a team together. Unwavering, a pillar of hope and strength. It made them wonder just how horrible the things she knows were, if it made her break down like this.

Eventually, Sakura calmed down and Naruto decided it was time he tells them, his most guarded secret. "Hey guys, if we're confessing and all that...I uh...I also have to tell you something..."

Sakura looked at Naruto with a confused face, while Sasuke raised his eyebrow skeptically at him. Naruto gulped before he started explaining.

"I...I am a demon." said Naruto with tears in his eyes. " The Nine-Tailed Fox...the demon that destroyed the village and killed the 4th...I am its container..." The blonde closed his eyes, as if expecting disgust and them to yell at him and call him a monster. But instead what he was met with was Sakura's hand rubbing circles on his back in a soothing manner.

"Oh, Naruto...Please don't call yourself a demon. It doesn't matter if you have the ninetails. You're still our Naruto and nothing will ever change that." she said while smiling kindly. "Know that I don't think any lower of you and I'm sure Sasuke doesn't either." The 2 genin turned their eyes to their raven haired teammate, who had a thoughtful expression.

"This explains so much...At least now I know how you can do so many shadow clones at a time. But no, this changes nothing, you're still the same dobe." said Sasuke, now looking at them. " 'S not your fault people can't tell the difference between a kunai and the scroll holding it. A very dumb scroll may I add..."

After hearing this, Naruto send them a cheeky grin. "Thanks guys, also who're you calling dumb you stupid teme!" At this, Sakura burst out laughing, making Naruto grin and Sasuke smirk lightly.

They'll be fine.


	15. Sound Ninja

After a few more hugs and tears shared between the team, the genin finally calmed down and now it was time to decide shifts. Currently, the bane of Sakura's existence.

"But why?" asked mildly annoyed pinkette.

"Sakura you're not getting first shift and that's final." said a much more annoyed Sasuke."You fought a giant snake all by yourself, healed both you and I, fought Orochimaru and summoned Lady Katsuyu. Heck I don't even know how your standing with how much chakra you used!"

"But-"

"Sakura-chan your hands have been shaking since we took shelter in here...you need to rest. Let us take care of you for once..." said Naruto. "Do you really not trust us?"

It wasn't that, never that. She trusted them more than anything in her life, but- Dosu and co. were on their way here and if something happened to her team because she was sleeping, she would never forgive herself.

"Of course I trust you guys! I'm just worried...What if something happens to you guys o-or what if someone attacks you guys and you need healing and-"

"Then we'll just wake you up." said Sasuke. "Now go to sleep you annoying woman!"

Sakura gave him an unimpressed look when he called her annoying, before she huffed. "Alright, fine! You guys win, I take last watch." then she started rummaging through her medical pouch. "At least promise me you'll take one of these before you start." she handed them 2, round black pills. "They're homemade chakra pills, they taste horrible, but I'll feel better if I know you took one."

The boys looked at the pills curiously before popping them in their mouths. Then they made disgusted faces as they tasted, quickly Sakura slaped her hands over their mouths to prevent them from spitting.

"I KNOW, ok. I know they taste horrible but they're good for you. Now swallow them." said Sakura, annoyed.

They eventually ate the pills, Naruto with some whining. Which meant that Sakura went to sleep, grumbling things under her breath, about 'bossy people' and some other very colorful words.

"Interesting vocabulary you got there Sakura-chan..." said Naruto, sweatdroping, from where he was standing next to Sasuke, at the cave entrance.

"Hn."

The 2 boys were standing in silence, looking around since neither were very sleepy. When suddenly they felt something slam into their backs. When they looked back they saw it was Sakura's back.

"If you assholes are forcing me to sleep, might as well keep me warm." grumbled a half asleep medic. Naruto chuckled lightly at her statement, while Sasuke smirked. It was common knowledge in the team that Sakura Haruno was a heat seeker when asleep. There were many night, during missions when her teammates found her back pressed to them. No one can escape.

...

A few hours after Sakura went to sleep, one of the traps that Naruto laid around their makeshift camp, activated. The exploding tags laid around, exploding and alerting Naruto who was taking first shift and waking up Sasuke. Both of them jolted up in fighting stances, the Uchiha activating his sharingan. From the smoke appeared 3 slightly singed figures.

"They're here for our scroll. Stay on your guard, Naruto." said Sasuke.

"What about Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

"Let her sleep, dobe. We've worried her enough as it is..." said the Uchiha before smirking. "Besides, we can take these guy."

Naruto grinned his way before punching his palm. "You're right teme, let's do this!"

The 3 figures stepped into the clearing, 2 male and 1 female. The one wrapped in bandages, presumably the leader, was the one who spoke.

"We have come for the Uchiha."

"What?!" yelled Naruto. "Like hell we'r-"

"What do you want with me?" interrupted the Uchiha.

"Lord Orochimaru sent us here to fight you." said the girl. "Call it a test if you will."

Naruto growled before he made 8 clones that all launched at the enemy. The girl dispelled some of them with her senbon but the other locked in hand to hand combat with the other 2. Sasuke, not wasting any time, ran towards the spiky haired teen and punched him in the face while he was distracted, before locking in taijutsu match with him. Naruto, not wanting to be outdone himself, also joined the frame as he kicked the girl in the gut. From behind, the one wrapped in bandages took a few steps back before revealing a metal gauntlet with holes in it.

"Kyōmeisen!" yelled Dosu before he sent the sound waves towards Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto managed not to get caught, but Sasuke did. Sasuke spit some blood which distracted him long enough for Zaku to punch the Uchiha in the face. He stumbled a few feet back before regaining himself and sending a Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu at both male sound nins. Meanwhile Naruto managed to overpower the girl and tied her to a tree, and joined Sasuke in the fight.

"2v2, eh? Sounds fun." said Naruto as he made 20 more clones. Sasuke nodded before he punched Dosu in the face. The 2 ninja became a flurry of punches and kicks. The uchiha saw that he was about to use another sound attack, so he sent Katon: Gōryūka no Jutsu his way and slammed him into a tree. Just when he was about to regain himself, Sasuke axe kicked him in the head, rendering him unconscious.

All this time Naruto was battling Zaku. He quickly send 6 clones his way, before jumping in himself. Zaku kicked the real Naruto back, but the blonde was smart, so he used the momentum to catch onto a clone and swing himself back towards the sound nin, with a kunai raised. Zaku dodged at the last second, but got his shoulder slashed, making the blonde faceplant into a tree.

And just when the sound nin thought things couldn't get any worse, a certain pinkette woke up, and boy was she pissed. She raised her leg up into the air and kicked the ground with all her might. The resulting wave of earth sending Zaku into a tree. It was at this moment, that he knew he fucked up. So the spiky haired teen swallowed his pride and admitted defeat, giving team 7 the scroll. Luckily it was an earth scroll.

Now that the easy part was done, it was time for the hard part. Dealing with a fuming mad Sakura.

Yeah they were screwed, send your prayers boys and girls.

Naruto and Sasuke might not make it out alive out of this one...


	16. The Tower

And so, after half an hour of scolding, yelling, _swearing_ and nagging from Sakura, team 7 finally started making their way towards the tower. Though, Naruto and Sasuke were holding their cheeks after a painful pinching session. Although they should count themselves lucky...Sakura could have easily kicked the everliving marshmallow fluff out of them, but instead she choose to only pinch their cheeks, _painfully_. But still, better.

Right now the 3 of them were jumping from tree to tree with Naruto keeping a light conversation with Sakura and occasionally asking Sasuke for his opinion. Not that Naruto could understand any of his grunts and "hns", but Sakura was a great translator, so whatever.

"You know I can't help but wonder what we'll be doing once we get out of the forest. I mean that crazy lady said this was only the second part, so there might be a third one." said Naruto, hand under chin and thoughtful expression. Then he glanced at Sakura. "Riiiiiight?"

Sakura nodded. "Mhhhm, usually the chunin exams have 3 parts, and in some rare cases preliminaries. The third round is always a battle tournament, so look forward to that I guess."

"Alright! Can't wait to kick some ass and then become chunin!" said the excited blonde.

Sakura laughed at his antics, before voicing her own opinion. "Yeah, well I don't know about you guys but I can't wait to get out of this stupid forest. We're arriving a day early so we can probably go home after we get to the tower."

"What do you plan to do once u get home, Sakura-chan?"

Suddenly the pinkette turned her head towards her teammates with a tired and maniac expression. "Fucking sleep, duuuuh!" before answering more calmly. "But I also have a new project that I'm working on..."

"New project?" asked Naruto, confused.

"A new poison?" asked Sasuke.

The medic smirked their way. "Wouldn't you two like to know..." before she leaped away farther from them, her evil laughter echoing in the forest.

The boys shared a slightly concerned glance before shrugging and going after their teammate.

...

A few hours later, the 3 genin reached the tower. They all landed neatly on the ground in front of the door before swinging it open to reveal...absolutely no one. The hell?

"There's no one here!" exclaimed an enraged Naruto.

"No shit dobe..." said a mildly annoyed Sasuke.

"Well now what? Do you think were late? What if they left without us!" said Naruto.

"Ok, let's calm down. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this...Let's uhhh...Let's check the scrolls, maybe they'll have some answers..." said Sakura.

Sasuke looked at her with a sceptical look before nodding slowly. "Worth a shot I guess...It's not like they told us not to open them in the tower." And so the genin opened the scrolls on the ground, so they can read them better. The scrolls revealed a summoning jutsu. The 3 of them backed away from the scroll and Iruka popped out. The man quickly congratulated the 3 of them before more chunin proctor assistants showed up. They took them to a side room filled with food where Kakashi waited for them.

"Yo! Good to see you three back in one piece." said the man before seeing the dried blood on their clothes. "Er- mostly."

"Good to see you too, sensei. What are you doing here?" said Sakura as she picked a bowl of katsudon. Naruto already dived for the ramen while Sasuke calmly picked a few onigiri that he dipped in ketchup.

"Ah well, I came to see you 3 and congratulate you. You even managed to make it a day earlier. Though it seems you had a few interesting encounters..." Kakashi's lone eye looking at Sakura's bandaged shoulder.

Naruto paused from his ramen to look back at his sensei. "You could say that again, sensei. It was crazy, we barely got in the forest when-" And so team 7 explained their encounters in the forest, the battle against Orochimaru, with a few things missing, since the boys promised not to say anything about Katsuyu.

The white haired man stayed in thought for a while before giving them an eye smile. "Well, I have to say, I'm quite impressed. You guys handled that situation very well and managed to drive the man away. I'm proud of you 3...You certainly aren't the same baby genin I met a few months ago."

The Naruto and Sakura grinned brightly at Kakashi while Sasuke had a small smile on his face. For the next hours team 7 ate the food provided to them, telling jokes and just talking in general about everything and nothing.

"Well this was great and all, but I honestly want to get home so, if you'll excuse me." said Sakura.

"Um...actually Sakura. Participants aren't allowed to leave the tower until the 4 days are up." said Kakashi.

" _What_?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but those are the rules-"

"Sensei if you don't find us a place to sleep in right now, I'll make you a funeral pyre out of all your limited edition icha icha paradise books." said Sakura in a terrifying tone.

The jonin gulped before answering. "W-well good thing the tower provided rooms for early participants. Follow me team."

And so the 3 tired genins made their way to a room with 3 beds, a table and a balcony.

"Down the hall are common bathrooms, yes they are divided by gender Sakura. You 3 go take a shower, you stink. I'll go tell the hokage about your new snake 'friend'." said Kakashi before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

An hour later the team was standing in their room, all in bathrobes as their clothes were drying on the balcony. Sakura, who's hair was pulled back in a very messy braided ponytail, was attempting to braid Naruto's very short hair while the blonde was having a civilized conversation with Sasuke for once. By the end, Naruto's blonde hair was sporting a million small blonde braids and even Sasuke had his bangs braided.

"I'm booored, let's play a game." said Naruto.

"With what, dobe? It's not like we have cards or anything..." said Sasuke.

Naruto was about to retort, but Sakura interrupted him. "Actually, we technically have." She started rummaging through her bag and pulled out exactly 52 senbons, that she quickly transformed into cards. Sasuke looked at her weirdly while Naruto beamed. "Oh don't look at me like that, it'll be fun, and I can always change them back later. And it's not like you have to play if you don't want to.""

"Unless you're a chicken." said Naruto.

Sasuke glared at the 2 of them before saying "Deal me in."

Team 7 played poker until late in the night, and by the end of it, Sasuke owned Naruto 41 bowls of ramen and Sakura 6 bowls of anmitsu. He's never playing cards with those 2 again.


	17. Preliminary Round

Today was the day. The day when the last teams arrive and the third round officially starts. And Naruto was very excited. Team 7 had arrived yesterday in the afternoon and since they arrived early, managed a good night's sleep in a comfy bed. Once morning came, Sasuke rudely woke him and Sakura-chan up with a bucket of cold water to the face, the asshole.

"Payback for last night." said Sasuke. And then Sakura proceeded to throw a pillow in his face before stomping towards the bathroom. Naruto burst out laughing as Sasuke plucked out feathers from his hair.

Twenty minutes later, team 7 was dressed up in their gear while looking absolutely fabulous. The braids that Sakura gave them last night resulted in them having wavy hair the next morning. Naruto thought his hair looked kinda weird, but, between laughs, Sakura said it made him look more handsome so he kept it. Sasuke on the other hand demanded that she fix it, so Sakura used her chakra to straighten his hair back to his emo glory. 

They went down to the mess hall to eat breakfast, Naruto being horrified at the amount of tomatoes on Sasuke's plate and being torn between being impressed or concerned for Sakura as the pinkette downed 12 cups of coffee in one go. _I've found my people_ , thought Naruto as he _inhaled_ his 10th cup of ramen.

At 10am sharp the remaining teams assembled in an indoors stadium with a platform raised on a wall. There was a small stage where the hokage was standing in front of a very impressive statue of 2 hands. There were 7 teams in total, 1 from sand, 1 from grass and 5 from leaf. All of the teams were assembled in the room and were chatting amongst themselves. Hinata was attempting to talk to Naruto without fainting and it was going surprisingly well, while Ino was giving her a thumbs up and an encouraging smile and Kiba was trying to interrupt Naruto and Hinata's conversation before he got kicked in the balls by Ino. Shikamaru was talking with Choji and Shino. Sakura was talking with Tenten, the two of them watching and commenting the weird conversation between Lee and Sasuke unfold. Sasuke responding with 'Hnns' and 'Aaas' and Lee somehow understanding them. Then again he was teammates with Neji, so he probably had experience. Speaking of Neji he was having a staredown with Gaara of all people, huh...didn't know he was suicidal. The hokage cleared his throat and started his speech about nation pride and all that stuff before the proctor for the third part, Hayate Gekou, stepped forward and explained that they will be having a preliminary round. The room exploded with indignant yells before they were swiftly silenced by the hokage.

"There are too many participants this year, a lot of important guests will be watching and we can't afford to waste their time, so if any of you aren't in top physical condition-" Hayate was interrupted by his own coughing fit. Naruto heard Sakura murmur "Well that's a lung infection if I've ever seen one..." and had to hold back a snort. "A-anyway, now's your chance to forfeit." Kabuto raised his hand and quit and then Hayate pointed towards a screen. The genin waited with bated breath for the first battle to be revealed, they watched as the screen went through random names before settling on 2:

_Yoroi Akadō vs Sasuke Uchiha_

"*cough**cough* Will everyone except Yoroi Akadō and Sasuke Uchiha, please go to the platforms." The genins quickly went towards the platforms to let the 2 fight. Sakura pat him on the back and wished him good luck while Naruto screeched a "You better not lose, bastard!".

Once the area was clear, Hayate gave a quick resume of the rules before allowing the 2 to start. Yoroi started by throwing a fist of shuriken towards the Uchiha, that he flawlessly dodged, but the older gening was fast and already in his face. The two of them locked each other in hand to hand combat before Sasuke tripped the guy and got him in a choking hold with his legs. It seemed to be over, however the guy placed a hand on his chest and started draining the raven haired male's chakra. Having part of his chakra drained left Sasuke feeling weak and wide open, Yoroi using the opening to punch him in the sternum and free himself from the hold, before jumping away. 

The Uchiha watched as the other ninja started advancing on him to finish him off, he faintly heard Sakura & Naruto yell at him to 'move', but he couldn't. He watched helplessly as Yoroi put his hand on his forehead and started draining his chakra. The man sucked a bit of his chakra before Sasuke had enough and kicked the man in the stomach, putting distance between the two. Sasuke wobbly stood up before the man was advancing on him again, but this time he managed to dodge the incoming hands aimed for his head. Sasuke aimed a kick at the man's head but he dodged. He needed a plan, and fast, but what to do, what to do...

He got snapped out of his stupor by Naruto screeching at him to get his act together. He saw Lee, Naruto and Sakura watching him with concern and got an idea. It was gonna be tricky but if he manages to pull this off, he will win the preliminary. While the guy was monologuing he took out some ninja wire and a kunai that he had tied. Yoroi launched himself forward and started trying to aim for his head, when he got too close to home he threw the kunai tied with the string and used it to pull himself away. He saw Sakura do this a lot of times while sparing, using her chakra strings to get out of the way of an incoming attack, and because he is unable to make them, he improvised. Once got away he landed on a hand and twisted his body in a way that when the guy advanced on him, he tripped. And it worked. He knew this strategy was effective because it was used on him _many_ times.

Mid fall he twisted himself in front of Yoroi and used one of Lee's moves to kick him up in the air, before he himself jumped after the man and started kicking him down using his new move, Lion Combo. Once they reached the ground the older genin stayed down, unconscious with blood tracking down his face, while Sasuke stood up on shaky legs.

"The winner of the fight is: Sasuke Uchiha!" declared Hayate. Sasuke smirked before putting his hands in his pocket and walking up the platform to stay next to Sakura and Naruto. Once he reached them, Kakashi ruffled his hair. "Good job, Sasuke." said the jonin.

"Nice use of the wire." said Sakura smirking.

"Hn."

"Nicely done you bastard! I knew you could do it!" exclaimed Naruto.

"I do have to say, Sasuke, I am most certainly impressed! The springtime of youth is strong in you!" said Lee as he created rainbows and sunsets all around him. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke sweatdropped.


	18. Uzumaki in the Ring

After Sasuke kicked Yoroi's ass, team 7 stood on the platform and watched the next fight between Shino and some guy from grass named Kaito Saiki. The genin had a very interesting dust manipulation jutsu but it was no match for Shino's bugs. The battle was over in seconds. The screen started randomizing names again when it stopped on 2 candidates:

_Naruto Uzumaki vs Kiba Inuzuka_

"Alright! It's finally my time to shine!" exclaimed Naruto. "I am so kicking his ass!"

"Do your best Naruto!" said Sakura.

"Don't lose dobe." said Sasuke.

"You got it you two, I'll win this for sure!" said Naruto before he jumped down the platform. The 2 leaf genin stood in front of each other and had an epic staredown while Hayate explained the rules once more. After the rules were debriefed, Kiba put akamaru down and Naruto being Naruto complained that it was against the rules, but the proctor quickly explained that it was fair game.

"Heh, of course you're complaining, wouldn't want anyone to ruin your hair. Eh pretty boy? What idiot even gave you that stupid hairdo?" said Kiba.

"Don't you dare insult Sakura-chan and her work, I'll have you know that my hair looks fabulous, unlike your rat's nest of a haircut!" said Naruto.

Then the actual fight began, Kiba used Ninja Art of Beast Mimicry: All-Fours Jutsu and gave himself longer nails like claws and better physical strength. He launched himself forward and used his elbow to hit naruto in the chest, the attack sending the blonde backwards. He landed on the ground and stood there as if unconscious. All around the other genin were mocking Naruto, saying how that was pathetic even for him. But Sakura knew better, she shared a look with Sasuke and saw he realized it too, this wasn't the end, the two of them continued to watch the match with twin smirks, the smugness basically radiating off of them. Naruto will be just fine. And they were right, next thing they knew Naruto was standing up and screaming at Kiba not to underestimate him.

"Atta boy Naruto, kick his ass!" screamed Sakura.

The genin were watching confused as Naruto took a fighting stance and mocked Kiba about his strength. Sasuke, the everliving drama queen, decided to clarify things for them. "It's just as he said, he was assessing his opponent, it was obvious he wouldn't give up that easly. The dobe is too stubborn for that."

Kiba growled and and took 3 smoke grenades that he threw at the blonde, once inside the smoke Kiba started attacking the blonde from all directions. When Naruto tried to get out, Akamaru jumped him and finished him off. The smoke dispersed and revealed the puppy standing proudly next to an unconscious Naruto. But then the dog ran forward and bit Kiba's hand. A puff of smoke appeared and Akamaru transformed into Naruto, Kiba quickly shook his arm and freed himself from Naruto's bite. The Inuzuka asked where his dog was, only to see him in Naruto's arms. Suddenly Kiba fed Akamaru a food pill and the dog became feral and his fur took an orange color. It kicked the blonde with his hind legs, thus escaping his captor.

He jumped on Kiba's back before he got transformed into his owner. Now 2 feral looking Kibas stood in front of Naruto before they pounced on him. Naruto dodged, again and again and again as Kiba and Akamaru kept on attacking him. The two eventually used Fang Over Fang and slammed into Naruto, the blonde was once again laying on the ground, as if unconscious. And yet again Naruto stood up and Kiba and Akamaru used Fang Over Fang, _again_ slamming into the blonde _again_ and him getting up _again_. Then the Inuzuka threw more smoke grenades to obscure Naruto's view before he used Fang Over Fang again. It was just like before except this time, it was a stronger move. Just when Kiba was about to deliver the finishing blow, Naruto transformed into him, making the boy unsure who was the real Akamaru. Kiba quickly used his sense of smell to identify Naruto but the blonde transformed into Akamaru at the last second, making Kiba confused and forcing him to attack his own dog too. Then Naruto ran at him from behind and kicked him square in the jaw. After Kiba realized his mistake, Naruto declared he was now gonna use his super secret killer move. The Inuzuka didn't give him a chance however and he started slashing at him with the speed and desperation of a wild animal. However when he came particularly close, Naruto farted in his face. The horrible smell making Kiba reel back in disgust. Using the distraction to his advantage, created 6 clones and then used a move inspired from Sasuke's Lion Combo, that he named Uzumaki Barrage. With each kick saying a syllable of his name until he kicked Kiba into unconsciousness.

"The winner of the fight is: Naruto Uzumaki!" declared Hayate. Naruto punched the air before also making his way up the platform.

"Good job, Naruto! I knew you could do it!" said Sakura as she gave him a one arm hug, making the blonde laugh.

"Hn. Impressive..." said Sasuke.

"Thanks guys! What did I tell ya, piece of cake!" said Naruto.

A few minutes later, Hinata came while being pushed from behind by Ino. The Hyūga heiress offered him some ointment, but he refused as he said Sakura could heal him. Sakura's answer was no. "Sorry Naruto, but I'm saving chakra for my fight. But you should take some of the ointment so that the wounds don't get infected." and she nudged him towards Hinata. The blonde took some of the ointment and while he was rubbing his wounds, Ino and Sakura took the moment to high five and giggle like mad man. Shikamaru and Sasuke watched the exchange, before making eye contact and shrugging, since they were already used to the girls being weird like that.

Next fight was between Tenten and Temari. And while Tenten's weapons usage in the fight was very impressive, it was no match for the sand kunoichi's wind jutsus. The battle was basically over before it even started. But the battle that followed next changed Naruto's life, forever.

_Karin Uzumaki vs Shikamaru Nara_

"W-wait a minute, Uzumaki? Am I seeing things or is that chick's last name Uzumaki!" said Naruto, not believing his own eyes as he stared at the screen.

"Huh, it does say Uzumaki..." said Kakashi. "She's probably a relative of yours."

"A relative..." said Naruto, still not believing what was happening.

Sakura put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. "You can probably talk to her once the preliminaries are over."

"Yeah..."

The battle was over in minutes, while Karin did think up a few strategies to defeat Shikamaru, the most notable one being when she spit a cloud of poison and used ninja wire to try and trip him into it, she was no match for the Nara's intellect. She fell to the shadow paralysis jutsu and a head collision with the wall. The medic nins took her away on a stretcher.


	19. Don't Try Telling a Doctor How Broken Bones Work

**(A\N: I'm not dead, hooray! I'm very sorry for not updating for such a long time, but I kinda had no motivation for a while, and then school got super busy, with the pandemic and it was just too much of a mess to make time for fanfiction. But now I'm back and I'll try my best to update. Now onto the chapter. Enyoi!)**

After the new discovery made in regards to the Uzumaki population, it was finally time for Sakura's match. The pinkette was sure she was gonna fight Ino like last time( except win this time around), but she was surprised to find out that she was going to fight Kankurō. Which is...interesting? She was certainly not expecting this... She kinda has a lot of experience about fighting puppet masters, what with her fight against Sasori? Kankurō should be a piece of cake. With encouragements from team 7, the pinkette made her way to the arena.

"My my, looks like it's my turn, and to think I have such an easy opponent! Hey girl, you better just quit, because there's no way a weakling like you could win." taunted Kankurō. And it was in that exact moment that Sakura decided she was going to thoroughly _humiliate_ him. In response to the taunt, the medic merely straightened her back and cracked her neck like a mafia boss. _He's going down._

"Kick his ass Sakura! Show him what girl power can do!" yelled Ino from behind the railing.

And so, once Hayate said start, Sakura threw 3 exploding kunai towards "Kankurō", one aimed at his chest and 2 towards the ground, with the aim of creating a smoke screen, rather then causing damage. Once she did that, she jumped into the air before doing an axe kick and slamming "Kankurō" into the ground. The dust cleared to reveal a small crater where the unconscious "Kankurō" made contact with the ground. Except he was perfectly fine, if only a bit scratched. Naruto cheered as he thought his teammate won, but Sasuke wasn't buying it, there was something fishy going on.

And he was right because suddenly the unconscious genin rotated its head 180 degrees to reveal a puppet disguised as Kankurō. The next second, it shot up, destroying its disguise and wrapping its limbs around Sakura in a constricting manner. Then, the weird mummified object on the puppet's back unwrapped himself to reveal Kankurō, who, of course started monologuing. While he was doing his dramatic explanation, and taunting Sakura with breaking her bones, our resident medic was slowly but surely overrunning his own chakra strings. 

By slowly attaching 4 to 5 chakra strings near every single one of Kankurō's chakra strings, she was able to overrun his control of the puppet. And thus near the end of the monologue, Sakura managed to stop the puppet's movement completely, it's arms going slack against her and releasing her. 

"WHAT?! What's going on? Why can't I move the puppet anymore?" asked a clearly distressed Kankurō. When he looked back carefully at the pinkette, he noticed the chakra strings attached to his own, that have overrun his control of the puppet. "What?! How did you manage to overrun my control? That shouldn't be poss-" but his panicked rant got interrupted by Sakura taking the puppet and snapping it like a twig over her bent knee, rendering it useless, before throwing the pieces aside. Poor Hayate had to duck in order not to get hit by them.

"Broken bones you say?" asked Sakura, looking at the ground, bangs obscuring her face, a dark aura forming around her. "You know, I'm a medic...Which means I've seen my fair shares of broken bones and fractures. So I know exactly how fast they break." Then she raised her head, a maniac expression on her face. "Shall I teach you?" The rest of team 7 sweatdropped, maniac Sakura meant only one thing: _She's pissed._

And like any sane person, Kankurō took a step back in fear. But it was too late, because next thing he knows Sakura is charging at him with her fist raised, ready to punch him. And punch him she did, with a cry of "SHANNAROO", her fist made contact with his face and sent him flying into a wall. A crater formed into the wall, showing a dazed and very beat up Kankurō, struggling to stay awake. 

"A bit of advice puppet boy, next time don't try lecturing a medic about injuries." said Sakura. And with that, the puppeteer fell from the crater and got rendered unconscious, face planting on the ground. 

"The winner of the fight is: Sakura Haruno!" Sakura cheered and then made her way to her team, but before she reached the stairs she looked back over her shoulder. "Oh! And sorry for almost hitting you Hayate." she said.

"Ah...It's fine."

"Both strong and kind! Ah...Sakura is just wonderful!" said Lee dreamly. Sasuke gave him a dirty side eye before diverting his attention to Sakura who was currently being crushed in a hug by Ino. Once Ino released her, she got enveloped into another crushing hug, this time by Naruto.

"That was amazing Sakura-chan! You kicked his ass to the next Sunday, ain't no way he's recovering from that." said Naruto, after he released her. 

The pinkette laughed. "Thanks Naruto. Honestly I was a bit pissed when he started monologuing." 

"Yeah we noticed." said Kakashi. Sakura raised an eyebrow in question, but the Jōnin merely ruffled her hair. "You did well. I'm proud of you."

"Hn...You were playing with him weren't you? You could have escaped his puppet by crushing it, but you decided to overrun his chakra strings in order to humiliate him." said Sasuke.

" _Whaaaat?_ Why I don't know what you're _talking_ about Sasuke. Doing that would mean I was petty enough to risk losing my match for a few words. I think you're mistaken." said Sakura.

"Aha, but you did didn't you?"

"Pff, obviously. If he didn't want total humiliation then maybe he shouldn't have opened his mouth."

And poor poor Temari, who was eavesdropping merely facepalmed. _Kankurō you idiot...  
_

"Oh yeah, before I forget!" said the pink medic before she slapped both of her hands on Naruto and Sasuke's foreheads, as her hands glowed green, any wounds the 2 of them might have gotten healed. "There, done. Now I can relax and watch the matches." 

Except she won't really relax because the next upcoming matches were about get bloody. That's right folks, it's time for Neji vs Hinata and Gaara vs Lee.


	20. Hyūga vs Hyūga

Next came Ino's fight against Misumi Tsurugi, Kabuto's other teammate. An easy win for the Yamanaka, with the most notable thing from the fight being Ino cutting her hair and using it to immobilise her opponent long enough to use the Mind Transfer Jutsu. ("Ha! Now we match Ino-pig!" "Sh- Shut it forehead, mind your business.") And with that out of the way, it was time for shitshow bloody match number 1.

_Hinata Hyūga vs Neji Hyūga_

Sakura cringed, she was hoping that since she got a different opponent, then maybe Hinata will too. But no dice. Shikamaru whistled. "Battle of the Hyūga...That's gonna be something." Understatement of the year. Naruto wished Hinata good luck while the pinkette flashed a thumbs up in the girls direction, Ino merely pat her back. You didn't need to be a genius or know the future to see the bad blood between the two Hyūga.(Naruto doesn't count.)

Once the 2 cousins stepped down, Neji started talking about how he did not expect to have to fight Hinata. After Hayate said start, Neji immediately activated his Byakugan, and poor Hinata, was shaking in her boots. Neji started a very dramatic monologue about destiny and Hinata never changing, but that quickly got shut down by Naruto, who told the Hyūga princess to "beat him up". After this, Hinata managed to compose herself and activated her Byakugan. And thus, the battle between the Hyūga officially began.

At first it was going rather well, with the 2 of them going into a dance like stace of striking and dodging. The Hyūga style of fighting being the perfect combination of and deadliness and elegance. Strike. Block. Dodge. Strike. Block. It was like a beautiful dance of death. But eventually the difference in skill has been seen, as Neji sent a Gentle Fist right to Hinata's heart (though it is notable to say that Hinata also managed to hit him at the same time, even if her strike was on the shoulder), making the girl spit out blood. Hinata slapped his hand away before going for another strike aimed a his face, but Neji caught her hand.

"My eyes can see the tenketsu." said Neji as he rolled up her sleeve to reveal several red dots made by the Gentle Fist throughout the battle. Then, just like that, he struck her in the chest again and made fall a few meters backwards. Then Hinata got back up, spitting more blood as she did so, before rushing again towards Neji. Naruto screamed at her to do her best, but the rest of the platform wasn't as positive as the blonde.

"Sheesh, I always knew the Hyūga were more hardcore, but even this seems a bit excessive for a win in a preliminary match." said Ino.

"Except he's not just trying to win..." said Sakura, a hand covering her mouth, as the sight of Hinata spitting blood was way too similar to the one against Pain (but never mind that, she can go and cry about her inner demons in a pillow at home, now she needs to stay focused so she can heal Hinata once the battle is over). "...he's trying to kill her."

"What?! No way! He wouldn't go that far, now would he?" exclaimed Ino, but one look at Sakura's green eyes was all the answer she needed. The blonde frowned as she returned her gaze to the arena. "...not Hinata."

And again, the girl rushed forward in an attempt to hit her opponent, but Neji merely struck another in her chest, the blow making her spit more blood as she fell forward, face first on the floor. 

Just as Hayate was about to call the match, Naruto screamed "Don't stop the match!" And whaddayaknow, the stubborn Hyūga princess rose up again on shaking legs and looked back at Neji determined.

"Moron...If you continue this you really will die. Are you suicidal?" said Neji. "I can tell you're barely standing. There's no reason for you to keep on suffering. Just accept it, it's your destiny..."

"You're wrong Neji...I can tell you're suffering much more...than me." said Hinata. And just like that, Neji snapped. Any kind of sanity he might have had just went out the window as he rushed at Hinata while screaming. Just as he was about to reach her, Hayate and 3 of the Jōnin senseis, Kakashi, Guy & Kurenai, suddenly encircled him and restrained him before he reached the girl.

"Neji! Get a hold of yourself." said Guy.

"Why are all the other Jōnin butting in?" said Neji. But he never got the answer to that, because just then Hinata collapsed. 

And that was Sakura's que to jump down and start healing. "Hinata! Hang in there!" said the pinkette as she kneeled in front of the injured girl. Her hands glowed green as she used her healing chakra to stop the internal bleeding and heal the damage done to her atria and ventricles.

"I'll help you!" yelled Ino as she also kneeled next to Hinata, hands green and ready. "What do you need me to do?"

"Focus on stopping the internal bleeding and see if you can get the blood out of her lungs. I'll try to stop her ventricular fibrillation from evolving into a heart attack."

The 2 girls immediately got to work and started healing the Hinata. Sakura was pouring as much chakra as she could into the heart chambers, directing the excessive blood towards the lungs, where Ino took it out through her mouth. The Yamanaka didn't have Sakura's chakra control to get all of it out, but she still managed to guide a big portion of it out. The two girls were working tirelessly to keep their friend alive.

Meanwhile Naruto, Sasuke and Lee also reached the group, the blonde yelling at Hinata to hang in there. And Neji, being well _Neji_ , attempted to mock Hinata for her failure. He didn't get very far...

"Do you wanna see about that?" asked a fuming Naruto. And as Neji smirked, Naruto started charging towards the Hyūga.

"Dobe!" yelled Sasuke as he reached for Naruto, but barely missed his back.

Luckily Naruto didn't reached Neji, as Lee stopped him. "The failure beats the gifted genius through sheer effort..." said Lee. "Wouldn't that make for an exciting battle?"

Naruto huffed, before turning away. "Alright then..." and he stepped back next to Sasuke, behind Sakura.

Back to Sakura, she and Ino were still working on a now unconscious Hinata. The pinkette frowned as she worked before suddenly gasping. "She's not breathing! Kurenai-sensei, I need you to administer CPR, now! Ino stop working on her lungs and stop the bleeding, if we don't stabilize her then all the work I did on her ventricles will be for nothing. Uhh! Where are those stupid medics?"

Kurenai immediately started chest compressions, before she started exhaling air into Hinata's lungs. Ino immediately started working on the internal bleeding while Sakura continued stabilizing the heart rate. Everyone watched with bated breaths as the 3 women worked to save the Hyūga princess.

 _'Sakura Haruno...She seems to be a natural at this, commanding both Ino and Kurenai with the finesse of a skilled medical ninja... a true medical prodigy...but-'_ thought the Hokage.

 _'Sakura...you have always been a kind heart...working hard to save even Zabuza...your skill has improved greatly since working at the hospital...but-'_ thought Kakashi.

A close shot of Sakura wiping sweat off of her forehead.

Another one of Kurenai doing chest compressions.

Ino was shown frowning and biting her lip.

 _'will it be enough?'_ thought Kakashi & the Hokage at the same time.

And yet, against all odds, the makeshift medical team managed to get Hinata breathing again and stabilize her. "Alright, she's stable for now but that won't last long! She needs professional treatment, NOW!" Just then the medics entered the arena with a stretcher. 

"Finally!" groaned Kurenai.

The medics carefully picked the girl up and loaded her onto the stretcher. "Di-did this girl just stop a heart attack all on her own?" said a very surprised med nin, before leaving to treat Hinata.

Sakura watched worriedly from her place on the floor as Hinata got taken away before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see Kakashi-sensei, his eye squinted as if he were smiling. "You did good Sakura, now it's time to leave it to the professionals..." The pinkette smiled tiredly before letting the offered hand help her up.

Just then, a very shaken Naruto snapped out of his shock and glared at Neji before going to the puddle of blood that Ino threw out. He kneeled and drew some of the blood into his hand before showing the now bloodied fist to Neji. "I promise you." said the blonde seriously, as he thought of Hinata.

"I will win no matter what!"


	21. A Sand Tomb For A Taijutsu Master

And now it was time for shitshow bloody match number 2. Well, not really, there was Chōji's match against Shigeri Miyato, but it ended quickly, Chōji won, so oh well. People were a bit distracted, because it was obvious who the last match of the day was gonna be. 

_Rock Lee vs Gaara_

Gaara already made his way to the arena and told Lee to hurry up, but Lee waited until the screen officially named the match. Once it did Naruto and Sakura gave their encouragements and Lee jumped down the platform to face Gaara. It started with a bit of taijutsu, mostly Lee trying to punch at Gaara's sand wall and doing almost nothing. Gaara also started the counterattack and send waves of sand at Lee that he flawlessly dodged. He dodged and dodged and dodged until he reached the Hokage's platform when he jumped on the statue. Once he was there, Guy-sensei allowed him to take off his weights. And he did so with a bang, once the weights reached the ground they created 2 mini craters and clouds of dust. Everyone was shocked into silence.

Sakura whistled at the small display of power which seemed to shake everyone out of their surprised silence. Sasuke looked weirdly at her.

"What?" she said. "It was impressive." He just shook his head.

After this Lee became a lot faster, every punch and kick he threw almost managing to hit Gaara. The poor Sand shinobi was confused as this flurry of of kicks and punches kept on breaching his defenses. Eventually, Lee got behind Gaara and landed a spectacular punch on him that knocked him down a few meters. However this proved to be slightly futile as Gaara introduced everyone to his ultimate defense Suna no Yoroi. Gaara covered his body in a layer of sand, wearing it like armour. Although it defends him from attacks that bypass his Shield of Sand, maintaining it consumes a great deal of chakra. 

At this Lee decided pull out his own secret card and started to unravel his bandages in order to perform Front Lotus. If Lee wasn't considered fast before, now he definitely was. The genin became a blur as he circled Gaara and gained more speed. Then he kicked Gaara higher and higher in the air up until his sand shield couldn't keep up with the speed. At peak height he wrapped Gaara in bandages, flipped him upside down and corkscrewed the both of them towards the ground. Everyone thought Lee won as they watched the shocked figure of Gaara lay motionless on the cracked ground. That is until it started cracking apart and everyone realized it was all sand. 

Then Gaara emerged from behind looking pissed and started pummeling Lee with sand waves. Guy explained that the lotus was very strenuous on the body and that Lee could not move. Yet it seemed that Lee wanted to prove everyone wrong as he started yet again dodgin Gaara's sand. Gaara gained a maniac and licked his lips as he managed to catch Lee again and toyed with him again as waves over waves of sand hit Lee head on. And just when all hope was lost, Lee's movement officially returned and his body became red as he opened the third gate, The Gate of Life. And then the fourth gate, The Gate of Pain. Once he did that, he became even faster as he kicked Gaara and managed to completely destroy the arena. Everyone was looking around confused as they couldn't see anymore until Shikamaru pointed them above, where Gaara was shown ascending with his sand following close behind as it couldn't keep up with the speed. Lee realised that Gaara was using the sand armor trick again as he flashed in front of the sand shinobi and started kicking him yet again. He used pure speed to jump around and in the air and kick Gaara with unmeasurable power and speed. He was like a tennis ball bouncing around and Lee was the walls that kept throwing him around. It was madness. Kakashi and Sasuke had their Sharingans open and Neji had his Byakugan open as well, they were probably the only ones that could keep up and see what was happening. Then Lee opened gate of The Gate of Closing, caught a piece of Gaara's clothing and used it to maximize the power of the finishing blow. However, just as they were descending, the gourd turned to sand which was then used to cushion Gaara's fall. 

Gaara was standing in a crater surrounded by his sand while Lee tried to catch his breath a few meters further. However there was no time for that as sand started advancing on him, the leaf genin tried to move but he couldn't. Eventually, the sand reached him and crushed both his left arm and his left leg. Lee cried in pain before fainting, it seemed Gaara was going to deliver the finishing blow when Guy intervened. Sakura then put a leg on the railing, ready to jump down but Kakashi caught her hand from behind. 

"Let the professionals handle it Sakura, you already did enough for one day." said the jonin.

"Kakashi-sensei please! I just want to help!" said the pinkette.

"Yeah, come on Kaka-sensei, Bushy Brows could be dying for all we know! Let Sakura-chan help." said Naruto and even Sasuke was giving his own silent support. With all of this, Kakashi relented and let go of Sakura's hand. The medic jumped down immediately and ran past Gaara straight to Lee's side. She immediately crouched down and started healing him. However, Lee got back up again. This made Guy stop his conversation with Gaara.

"Lee, stand down please you're in no condition to fight anymore." said Sakura. 

Guy immediately ran over to his student "Lee, it's alright. It's over." However Lee wasn't responding and that's when Guy realised he was unconscious. This made Guy cry and acknowledge that Lee was a fine ninja.

"Guy-sensei, lower him back down before he aggravates his injuries, he shouldn't put pressure on his leg." said Sakura, Guy nodded and lowered his student. He took a seat on the on the other side of his student and watched as the pink medic worked on his leg. However it seemed that this action snapped something into Gaara again as he roared and threw sand towards Sakura. The pinkett watched the incoming sand head on, looking at it with a fearless expression, determined to protect her patient no matter what. 

"Sakura!" "Sakura-chan!" cried the Naruto and Sasuke, while Kakashi jumped down the platform.

However the sand stopped a few centimeters from Sakura's face as Baki stopped Gaara. The sand fell down harmlessly on the floor. Sakura started at the sand on the floor before returning to the task at hand, like a soldier on a battlefield. Eventually the slow medic nins came and took Gaara away. Now Sakura could finally relax. 

Kakashi put his hand on Sakura's shoulder. "Are you ok Sakura?"

"I- uh... yeah... Yeah I'm fi-" and just then Naruto and Ino slammed into the pinkette.

"What the hell forehead? I thought you were gonna die, what was that? Why the hell didn't you move?" exclaimed Ino.

"Yeah Sakura-chan, I was very scared for you." said Naruto.

"I'm sorry I scared you guys, but I couldn't just leave Lee there, I promised myself I'll never let a friend die and I meant it." said Sakura. Then Sakura was offered a helping hand from Sasuke that she gladly accepted and let herself get pulled up by the Uchiha.

"Be more careful next time." said Sasuke.

"Got it."

Then, Hayate cleared his throat and told all of the winners to make their way down the arena. "Now we will begin the selection for the final exam, I would like you all to take a slip of paper from the box that *cough**cough* A-Anko is holding, in calm and orderly fashion." All of the genin put their hands in the box and took one slip of paper. "Now you may all read out loud the number that you received, starting with you." and he pointed at Neji.

"Number 2." said Neji

"Nine." said Gaara.

"I have number 4." said Temari.

"I have 8." said Sakura.

"Hn, 7." said Sasuke.

"Number 1 of course!" exclaimed Naruto.

"5." said Shino.

"Number 3, what a drag." said Shikamaru.

"I have number 10!" said Chōji.

"I've got 6." said Ino.

Hayate nodded then the screen started displaying the matches for the finals.

_1.Naruto Uzumaki vs. Neji Hyūga_

_2.Shikamaru Nara vs_ _Temari_

_3.Shino Aburame vs Ino Yamanaka_

_4.Sasuke Uchiha vs Sakura Haruno_

_6.Gaara vs Chōji Akimichi_

Sakura and Sasuke stared at the screen in bewilderment before looking at eachother. Suddenly Sakura extended her hand towards Sasuke. Sasuke smirked before he shook her hand.

"May the best win." 


End file.
